Pax Nipponica
by Anime Borat
Summary: "Tokyo," a secret association of men, whose backroom deals decided the course of Japan's history. The failure at Hinamizawa forced them to convene as they decide what do next. A ghost without a past comes to them, to ask a burning question and tell a burning truth. Concluded. WARNING: Dialogue and exposition heavy, spoilers for both Higurashi and Metal Gear.
1. Pain Gets The Better of Us

**Pax Nipponica**

A/N: I created because "Tokyo" escaped largely unfazed from the events of _Higurashi and_ it was set in the Eighties, at this point was when Japan was a rising economic superpower and with that increased international stature; also due to the setting of _MGSV: The Phantom Pain_. The "Tokyo" subplot had held some interest to me as there were real-world precedents to their example, followed by the shared parasite-based WMD subplot. Also, from my knowledge there is no Higurashi fanfiction focusing on "Tokyo" and a due to the plot nature, this thing is too good to pass up.

Disclaimer: Higurashi is the property of 07th Expansion and Ryukishi07, anime adaptation by Studio Deen. The Metal Gear series may be owned by Konami now but it remains for the most part, Kojima's masterpiece. No copyright infringement intended.

* * *

 **Prologue: Pain Gets The Better of Us**

" _If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared._ "  
— Machiavelli

" _Don't get mad, get even._ "  
— John F. Kennedy

Blow by the blow fell on the body bound to the rack, made up of a mattress-less bed held upright by slanting against a wall.

The sound of fists crashing into bone and flesh, eliciting whelps and screams, each thud and crack, causing fresh floods of pain coursing through the nerves. The woman was being softened, blood covering her wrecked face, coming out of the mouths and nostrils.

The torturer asked his questions, each answer dictated his response. The right answer, the answer he wanted, elicited calm soothing words that promise less pain for every question answered correctly. Every wrong one carried the brutal storm of physical violence, followed by the question repeated. But it wasn't a fixed pattern, he used physical torture and psychiatry, switching methods when appropriate. He was a master of it, who had so much practice. Water cure, electric shock, fists punching strategic parts of the body, verbal abuse, mind manipulation, soothing words, keeping his captive off guard, slowly yielding precious information.

Yet all throughout, the woman gave only reluctantly in spite of the savage treatment she was meted. Her torturer noticed this and seemed to acknowledge this resilience, this loyalty to a group who was as immaterial as he had become, moving under the radar, off the grid. A group that could never reciprocate her loyalty at such a critical hour.

Her pain will go unrewarded. "Your superiors have been hiding ever since they started. They hide in plain sight and no one can know who belonged to their secret little club." His voice held contempt as though they were a petty little coffee klatsch. "All their orders delivered by proxy." He looked down the woman. "Except you. You were the main conduit between components for their scheme, to bring the world to its knees, to ensure your island nation ascends over it. You are the link between them and the legal government through the Chief Cabinet Secretary. Tell me Tell me something concrete..."

She wheezed. "Ah-ah-I t-t-told y-you e-e-everything." He voice shaky as her entire body, broken down, labored itself to sustain her just to talk. "E-everything you... you n.. needed to.. know... B-b-but I d-don't w-where they... are. I-I s-swear."

"How about I make this easier for you: that is all I need. Whatever the answer is, you are free to go. Free to walk out of this place."

The woman laid back and gulped as she struggled between telling him or not. Her pain, wracked body could not take it anymore. Then she decided her fate. She nodded, surrendering.

"Now, how will I find them, Nomura-san?" he asked softly, with the voice of someone's favorite uncle spoiling his niece.

Her mouth sputtered in hacking coughs, spraying blood on the floor. When her pained coughs finished, she slowly raised her head, her eyes squinting in the bright light focused on her, her captor blocking it and being backlit by it, his face mercifully obscured by the contrast, his appearance horrifying enough. She looked up. "I know... someone... that bastard."

"Please, do tell."

At the utterance of the name, he smiled as the last piece of the puzzle fitted, furthering his quest. "Thank you." The woman laid her head back on the rack, both in shame and in relief. He noticed it. "Don't feel so bad. Why do you held out for so long when you can simply tell in the first place. I made it clear from the very start about what would happen to you if you refused, that you can simply walk away after telling me just what I needed. You hold out for so long just for a little tidbit of information, one little thing I needed, one little thing you would have less to lose. Is because of loyalty? To your organization? To your convictions? Tell me why? When your tribulation began, you think that this can't be happening? Is it education? Morals, faith? Just the imprint of a lifetime of stories?

"Here, you face the end, which is where you are, yet you still held out hope. The world you are born into is made to save you. Isn't that right? Of course it is. Such is the truth, known by all. Until the last dying breath, you know it. Without the slightest chance or reason left to them, humans are capable of hope.

"I'm no different. But for one thing. When my time came calling I didn't die. My country, my family perished in fire. But I didn't. Just like your country, your land when Curtis LeMay's bombers rained fire and thunder upon your home, my home was burned to ashes from the air. Back then, you believed that the war is for your motherland's honor and glory, righteously mandated by heaven and when the tides turned, you simply would not believe it. Yet, you held out in spite of the punishment meted to you, the dwindling food supplies and harsh living. And for what? You hoped that the Divine Wind would protect you? That somehow the bombs will stop and everything will become right with the world... Your world. Tell me, is their suffering justified? That their loyalty to their country and their convictions, the belief that they are fighting for a righteous cause against the enemy, the sacrifices made would somehow be rewarded?

"My country picked a side and was _scorched_ for it. I was burned for it. Then I realized that I must live. I'm their last hope, all those who perished and left me here. I must accomplish something , lest the tides of history sweep their will from the face of this earth. I have a lot of respect for your people, having endured so much. But no one can always get their way. I was born a tiny mote in a mighty tempest, and until those winds abate, all I can choose is how to act when they blow me this way and that."

She grabbed her hair and yanked her head up. "Tell me what you see! You can see, right?" The woman's eyes were full of terror." He grimaced, causing her to whimper helplessly. "That's right. You see a skull. This skull is who I am, the proof of my humanity. I have nothing, no country, no language, no face, but the skull is all I inherit." He let her go. "So I told myself... The pain and effort that keep me alive will never know solace, never bear fruit, never be rewarded. I know that, but I told myself to focus on some hope, a nonexistent hope to guide me through this burning world. A hope - call it a dream. A melancholic delusion. I know how you feel. I've felt that. So show me. That I'm not the only one. That you too can return to this world, for revenge. Isn't it why your so-called superiors do it? To avenge the defeat if a war they brought upon themselves? To bring their old foes to their knees? Tell me, will you go on to live, for revenge?"

Nomura's face broke, sobbing as tears streamed across her face, her shame and defeat total. She tried to to put up a strong facade, but that was impossible as every ounce of her being had battered, every ounce of her personhood, her humanity, destroyed, reduced to tatters by the skull-faced man.

Skull Face watched her in disappointment. "Ahh..."She has lost all hope. She can never keep up. He pulled out something from the side of his leg. "I accept your disgrace, your sorrow, unto myself." A shot echoed, followed by two clicks and clinking cartridge. "Rest in hell." He walked out and motioned for his two subordinates to follow, moving on to the next part of their purpose.

* * *

A/N: Nomura is Takano Miyo's main contact with "Tokyo" in the Higurashi series. She was the catalyst of many event visual novel series.


	2. Loose Ends

**Chapter 1: Loose Ends**

A/N: This an introduction to the main story. I feel our favorite Higurashi characters deserved at least their happiness but "Tokyo" remains the main focus.

* * *

 _Live well. It is the greatest revenge._  
— The Talmud

 _Everyone, live on.  
-Keiichi Maebara_

Inside the Maebara Residence, the Games Club gathered around in the living room. It was an early Saturday night in the first few weeks of autumn, the very first real one in their lives after countless cycles of repetition. Last summer, they have saved their village from destruction in the hands of Takano Miyo and at last they can now live their lives in peace.

"Movie night!" announced Keiichi. "And look what the tape shop got today~?" He held out several VHS tapes.

"Awesome, Keiichi," exclaimed Mion.

"Yeah, Keiichi," said Satoko. "You must be loaded."

"What are we gonna watch tonight?" asked Rena cutely. "Rena would like to know."

"Rena, we should put it all to vote since there's a number of great films to watch here. It'll be up to vote though." He picked one tape. "I have _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ here… and we have _Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back_ , _Caddyshack_ …"

"Oh, how about _The Fox and The Hound?_ " Rena suggested.

Keiichi cocked an eyebrow. "Rena, that's a kiddy movie."

"Come on," Rena pouted, her face looking dangerously cute.

"Keiichi," said Rika. "You know how much she likes cute things. And tonight you got the whole house to yourself."

"Yes, I know but I want to open movie night something exciting."

"How about _Escape From New York_?" suggested Mion. "That's exciting."

"Gee, who would have guessed that you like action films," he noted cheekily.

"She's a tomboy, baka," Shion playfully tapped his head with a magazine.

"Hey," retorted Keiichi, annoyed. Everyone chuckled.

While everyone debated about the merits of a particular movie. Rika observed her friends in such a lively atmosphere. Many cycles of millennia, who would have thought about this would come to them, she thought. Back then, this scene would have been a pipe dream, to be destroyed by the madness that swept the village and swept away by a cold, existential cosmos. _Lord of the Flies_ in rural Japan.

"Who would have thought we get to end of the tunnel?" Hanyu commented as she watched the scene with a smile.

"Yeah, who knew, especially with the light seemed so far away?" Rika agreed. "Getting to sit here and watch a movie, this is like a breath of fresh air."

"Or the taste of new wine." Back then, she was Ahab, forever chasing the white whale Moby Dick in an effort to end the eternal cycle of suffering. Then came her Ishmael, Keiichi, who helped broke the cycle they thought could never be broken.

Hanyu blanched at that. Rika was always fond of liquor and spicy food, both things the goddess hates. Then Rika looked out the wide glass doors that led out, moonlight shining on the grass with Shion's bodyguard Kasai standing guard with a few good men from the Sonozaki family. Shion and Mion aren't taking chances, securing a critical flank against any renewed incursion from the magnates of the old order. "I hope this would permanent – for us anyway."

"What do you mean?" Hanyu asked.

Rika looked at her. "Have you heard of _Nineteen Eighty-Four_?"

She gave her curious look. "Isn't that next year?"

"Close but not quite. _Nineteen Eighty-Four_ is a novel by British author George Orwell. The story describes a totalitarian dictatorship covering much of the world. The influence of that book can still be felt today in terms like 'Big Brother' and 'though police' as well as the overarching rigid control and hierarchy of a police state." Rika paused as everyone voted which movies they wanted to watch. "Thinking about next year gives me the shivers."

Hanyu knew what she meant. "I see. But you could just be worried over nothing."

"At the moment, anyway." Her eyes looked distantly into space. "Fate always has a way of trumping efforts. And I also wonder... What if our efforts affected someone else, like rippling water after a stone was throne..."

"Or a butterfly," Hanyu suggested.

"Yes, a butterfly." Rika thought she saw a blue butterfly fluttering around in the room, close to the moonlight, searching for a way out. She blinked her eyes twice. No, it seemed, she wasn't imagining it. But how could there be a butterfly at night? Aren't moths and cicadas supposed to be out but not butterflies? She looked at it.

One many cycles ago, they were like that butterfly, flapping in the darkness searching for a light, a way out. She totally understood what it was going though right now. She blinked her eyes and the blue butterfly vanished. Yes, the world they created may be as fragile as the creature that disappeared. Would their happiness disappear too?

Some excited cheering broke her out of her trance. "It's been decided!" the Magician of Words called out. "Kicking off movie night would be _Star Wars_ , starting with the first movie!" He held up the tape, with its cover featuring the character Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, the Death Star, C-3PO and R2-D2.

"Hey, Rika! We're all gonna watch Star Wars!" Satoko said excitedly as she took Rika by the hand and settled her down in the center of the living room. _Why should she be worrying about future?_ Rika thought. _This isn't a funeral, this is a celebration of life!_

Her eye caught sight of an old newspaper sitting under the TV. It looked old, dating back from 1975. The headline read, "MOTHER BASE: STEEL CASTLE IN FLAMES! SINKS BENEATH THE CARIBBEAN! PARAMILITARIES TO BLAME!"

Then it hit her. She said to Hanyu, "You know what... I think fate wants tie up some loose ends. _Horror vacui_."

"What's that?"

"Nature abhors a vacuum." From the home entertainment system blared John William's orchestral score announcing the start of an epic long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

* * *

Aokigahara, a forest of black trees nestling on the foot Mount Fuji. The black sea of trees was an eerie place. It was the abode of the _yurei_ , ghosts of the dead, and had been a place of suicide. Growing primarily on volcanic rock impervious to digging tools, the trees form a dense carpet that made losing your way quiet easy. Above the forest in near total darkness, a helicopter flew well above the unseen canopy, struggling to keep speed in the air currents in order to mask its sound while straddling in almost pitch-black. The door opened and someone was thrown out, only to be saved a hand holding the collar of his shirt jacket.

"Please! Don't let me go!" pleaded the suit, barely hanging on for his dear life.

"Only if you tell me where they are," shouted Skull Face holding him over noise of the rotors, "will this be over for you!"

"We can talk this over," cried the man desperately, pleading. "I don't want to do anything with them anymore." A sharp tug sent his back on the floor of the chopper. He looked up to see the terrifying visage of his current captor, looking demonic in the red interior lights.

Skull Face turned around and closed the sliding door in swift speed and dexterity. "Well, that wasn't so hard, is it?" He knelt down. "So, where are they?"

He panted before he talked. "I-I-I kn-know were they are. Everything about the failed op in Hinamizawa had got them spooked. Everyone's spooked. They're meeting together in some place."

"Oh...," he chimed with interest. "And where to?"

"I know the place." He told them about where his bosses were meeting on this weekend.

"Are you certain about this?" he questioned. "The information would be suspect."

"I know I'm sure," he replied. "I dug as much as I could about them so that when the shit hits fan like it did now, I have my golden ticket out of here."

"Ah, so you wanted out? No one likes to stay on a sinking ship." He stood up again. He gave him his hand. The man, taken by surprise by this act of kindness at first, took his gloved hand and was raised up on his feet. "Thank you." He nodded. "A drink." A soldier, without being told, handed his boss a thermos, which he opened and filled the cup.

The man eased his breath, surprised at the reprieve, and drank a bit. He was apple juice, not whiskey that he expected. It felt good going down the throat. He was not sure why but he hoped that he would make it. Perhaps his generosity was unexpected. He was well away from distancing himself from Tokyo when he was caught. He hoped he could make to Europe, buy himself some good cars there, of Old World elegance and quality.

"I will let you on your way," he said, taking the cup from his grateful prisoner. "You are finally free." Then faced him and said, "You know something... I only have to put an eighth of an ounce of effort of what I did with that woman to learn much about your organisation, you were last bit she mentioned. And now that you mentioned your employers, I'm off to the next stage of my job here."

He acknowledged with a respectful nod. Nomura wasn't smart enough to know when the game was up. It did not take much to imagine how that ended up, especially how the disfigured cowboy had demonstrated.

He then added, "The woman was ten times the man you are, by the way." He gestured to the soldier to open the sliding door, which he did, letting back the wind in. The suit's eyes squinted from the rush of air blowing into his eyes and before he knew it, his captor swiftly and roughly restraint him, held him out of the open door.

"WAIT! You said this will be over," he protested in horror as he looked out the inky-black world beyond the helicopter.

"Yes, I did." His face formed into a grin. "I'm only giving you what is due." Then he pulled him back in and whispered into his ear, "Your services are no longer required, Mr. Hanada. See you in hell." A powerful shove was all it took to fly out of the door.

The man screamed as he hurtled to ground, waving his arms instinctively as the blackness approached. All his hopes of finally getting away, of finally getting his hands on old cars, were fast fluttering away as he was pulled closer and closer into the darkness.

The helicopter departed from the skies over the sea of trees, its mysterious passenger on his way to finish his purpose.

* * *

 _After this world war, the United States and the USSR may unquestionably emerge unhurt when all other nations are devastated. I can imagine, therefore, that our country, which is placed between these two giants, may face great hardships. However, there is no need for despair. When these two lose the competition of other countries in their respective vicinities, they will grow careless and corrupt. We will simply have to sleep in the woodshed and eat bitter fruits for a few decades. Then when we have refurbished our manliness inside and out, we may still achieve a favorable result._

 _—Lord Koichi Kido, to Emperor Hirohito of Japan, December 3, 1940_

 _After the end of World War II, the world was split into two - East and West. This marked the beginning of the era called the Cold War.  
_ ―Naked Snake

It had been this way. The incident at Gifu demanded that they convene. Often before they had faced - and experienced - failure before but this was more than a setback. The ramifications it had for them and their ambitions was enormous. Their country's future direction was at stake.

At night the the wires burned as phone calls were traded, at the backrooms of upscale clubs and restaurants and at their places of work, at their homes they met in little knots, hushed discreet tones conveyed their fears. They cannot sweep it aside. It had to be met head on.

A general meeting was to be called for. No, a conference, for that it was. Everyone in the clique, the old gang, everyone with the colors, everyone still left from back in the bad old days must answer the summons as well as the new crop, the men who will succeed them. Nothing of this scale has been called for since they they gathered and created their informal group back in 1949.

They were "Tokyo", a fellowship born out of the ashes of the Second World War, preserving a dream of Japan's power and greatness after it suffered a horrendous defeat in the hands of the Allies. Most of its founding members had seen through the war as soldiers, bureaucrats, businessmen, while others had been but mere children during the conflict. To see their country in ruins, impoverished, their people starved and reduced to nothing but subsisting on their willpower, their devotion to the emperor and Japan, yet their pain, their faith had not been rewarded, had driven a deep and lasting wound into these men. From the moment they gradually found themselves and realized the passion they shared had not died out, they swore to bring their country back from the brink - and to avenge her defeat.

Beginning their work years after the fall of their country, they build their fortunes and their network. They slowly rose back to corridors of power, albeit behind the scenes for many of them. Now they are power brokers who can decide the destiny of the nation. Yet, it was only due to careful strategy, calculated planning and consideration of a cost-benefit ratio, close cooperation and coordination of their efforts, firm, unwavering resolve, keen senses of the world around them that managed this far.

A descendant of the patriotic secret societies that emerged during the first half the twentieth century such as the Black Dragon Society, they were the shepherds who guided the country's course from the shadows, they were the priests that preserved her heart and soul, _Yamato-damashii_ , so they can be revealed when the time is right, when they can be strong, protecting their country from the subtle reaches of America, the country that for all its pleasantries of honoring self-determination, had considered itself their master, and even today still is. America's conduct spoke for itself in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. And this was an American decade as her influence experienced resurgence with the election of Ronald Reagan to the US presidency. Japan must not be dragged into that man's saber-rattling lunacy, not after achieving so much in what was an incredibly short amount of time.

In the Pacific Ocean a lone-ocean going yacht took them to an island in French Polynesia, the discreet gathering took place. So much was on the table that needed to be discussed, they know their time was fading and the future, altogether promising and terrible, was an opportunity they cannot afford to loose.

"It is without doubt a most unfortunate happenstance," noted a former politician and an imminent personality among conservative political circles. "The failure of Takano's project was disastrous. Millions in funding and years of research all gone to waste. We need to know why." He faced his cohorts, members of the secret brotherhood that they've started. They've grown considerably over the years with a few missing faces but not much else. The "commission" rarely admitted new faces, most of whom have to be vetted extensively by all of the core men of their gathering.

"That stinks of treason!" The man who cried angrily was the chairman of the political science department of Tokyo University, his outstanding lectures had given him wide acclaim. "We should have had a reliable man heading the project after Koizumi died, that late doctor of plagues had been too lenient of this Takano. A dedicated man, a man who puts his country above his own ambitions, would have done away with her nonsense and move on but this was a criminal oversight on the part of this group." He was also the ideological theoretician of the group, who can divine the patriotism in his cohorts and their plans and suggestions. An old hand who believed in purity of ideology rather than more pragmatic approaches of his cohorts. He was the kingmaker of the group, can make or break his fellow patriots in the room, making him about as popular as the plague. He was own side. Who among in the room will he throw his weight to?

"The Alphabet Project yielded almost nothing concrete!" cried a senior official from the Science and Technology Agency. "What do you have to explain for this?" At a corner of the room, a senior official of the Ministry of Finance smiled subtly and nobody noticed. Nomura had done her part well.

The men focused on two of their number, who was a member of the Defense Agency, wore his uniform proudly at work as a general should. Even the the cut of his suit reflected his modest outlook in life, he was a military man at heart. He sat rigidly, not flinching from the abuse he just received. He was the military representative of their group. Next to him was the deputy minister of health, his face impassive as he lacked the backbone of the soldier next to him. He wanted a cigarette but none was to be found and to ask for one now would be more than impolite, it would be seen as a lack of respect to this council. He stood in for his deceased superior, Koizumi, who died of a heart attack.

"We have not anticipated resistance from the villagers or the local police refusing to cooperate with us," the general answered in a clipped monotone he had long used in his service in the army.

"You should have pushed for it, bringing your power and authority to bear," charged the professor. "You were in charge of the project."

"And risk exposure?" questioned the soldier. "You well know I have an obligation to keep our dealings to secrecy."

"But you are a general of the Self-Defense Force," he pointed out. "Counter-intelligence unit _Yamainu_ was supposed to be under your control."

"And I wasn't in charge of the local police," he replied evenly. He would not bow to this "school teacher". The bastard, when not teaching about the ramifications of the public's shift of opinion to the left, was flapping his gums about their country's political mysticism, which can hardly be helpful to them on their own. "There are limits to our power at the moment."

"Let's not lose focus of what we're here for," said the power broker, trying to keep the meeting in line. "We should start from the beginning." He turned to the general. "What is the status of the clean-up?"

"It has gone well, Kanamori-san," he replied deferentially. He knew who to respect. "Takano is in custody and the Irie institute is dismantled, every piece and square inch of it sanitized. We have the cooperation of the village elders but with the knowledge of our activities in the village of Hinamizawa, one of the so-called Three Great Houses, the Sonozaki family, has some leverage in our dealings with them."

"Isn't it the bunch responsible for responsible for dam protests?" one of them observed.

"Yes," answered another, the magnate of one of the country's leading newspaper, "and they were also responsible for kidnapping the construction minister's grandson and the murder of the construction manager in charge of the dam project." He did not know that it was mainly the _Yamainu_ 's doing.

"A lot of people are unhappy about that, with the Gifu prefecture being in the tail end of the country's economic prosperity," observed a third, which was an understatement as a violent backlash against the people of Hinamizawa and the neighboring villages resulted from that.

"And what do they want in return?" asked a board member of one of the country's largest banks.

"That they be left alone," said the general. "That they continue to live blissful, pastoral obscurity and some small compensation. Their terms are reasonable enough." He handed the banker a paper.

"Incredible...," said the senior banker, eyes wide in partial disbelief. "Very reasonable, with relatively little cost to ourselves."

"We should count what we retained to what we lost," suggested the deputy Finance Minister. "Nothing like this comes our way often."

"How do we know that they well not break their part of the deal?" asked the banker.

"I have arranged for that," voiced the Minister for Home Affairs. "As the SDF leaves, my people will take over surveillance duties over at the village."

"Your people?" questioned the banker.

"Yes, I'll have some domestic security teams maintaining round-the-clock surveillance of the village. They will be rotated every weekly."

"How good are these people?" the general asked.

"Quite good," he assured. "They know how to take orders and how to keep their mouths shut."

"It better be that," the kingmaker said. "The last thing we want are your sleuths getting too nosy for their own good. Let's go through by the numbers, gentlemen." He turned to the health ministry man. "You are Koizumi's aide. Can you tell us about science side of the Alphabet Project?"

* * *

A/N: I imagine that due to the endless cycles they've been through, they may not have time to watch a number of iconic 70's or 80's movies. For me, having them watch _Star Wars_ from the very first would represent a fresh start in their new lives. Also, Mr. Hanada is Shirou Hanada, a villain from the Higurashi visual novels.


	3. Mind Worm

**Chapter 2: Mind Worm**

A/N: This second chapter is mainly exposition of the Hinamizawa Syndrome and my ideas of it if is a real disease. This may bore you, with all the tech details I created. I read the wiki and scoured as much as I could from the forums for the series's lore as well as real science. I also took some ideas from World War 2. Watch out for a racial slur that might appear so I apologize in advance. And please review when you can.

 _The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..  
_ -John Milton, Paradise Lost

 _In vast laboratories in the Ministry of Peace, and in experimental stations, teams of experts are indefatigably at work searching for new and deadlier gases; or for soluble poisons capable of being produced in such quantities as to destroy the vegetation of whole continents; or for breeds of disease germs immunised against all possible antibodies._  
-George Orwell - 1984

* * *

"The Imperial Senate will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently. The last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away." Grand Moff Tarkin , as he strode in with Darth Vader, felt proud and relieved that the Emperor has at last gotten rid of such an obstruction to the Imperial order.

"That's impossible! How will the Emperor maintain control without the bureaucracy?"

"Is this the part where they blow up that planet?" Satoko whispered.

"Sssh." Rika put her finger in her mouth. "No, and why would want to wait for that part?"

"... Fear will keep the local systems in line," Tarkin replied. "Fear of this battle station." The Games Club watched as Cassio Tage reacted with disbelief to the dissolving of a council that up to that point kept the Empire in line.

* * *

The man stood up, careful not to act like a jack-in-the-box. He took a deep breath. Not a good sign to the men in the room. He may lack confidence and to them, lacking that means that credibility is lacking. He began slowly, "The Alphabet Project was a broad one, covering three areas of specialization in the making of weapons of mass destruction. Nuclear, biological, and, chemical. In the old days, 'nuclear' was formerly known as 'atomic', thus how it got its old name. From its inception, Koizumi was placed in charge of biological research.

"When the war was over, several of our scientists who worked in our special biological research division covered under Water Purification Unit 731 had been arrested by the Allies but only few of them had been brought to court during the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in 1946, with most of them and their research taken to the United States."

"That is old news to us," said a senior executive for a building firm. "Some of them returned to be makers and shakers of our society." The scientist is one. "What does it have to with Gifu?"

"A lot, sir, especially to the head of the project on the field, Takano Miyo. She is the adopted granddaughter of Hifumi Miyo, a researcher and discoverer of the Hinamizawa Syndrome. She was the daughter of Tanashi Takemitsu, a student of his. He and his wife died in an accident back in the '50s. During that time, she was adopted in an orphanage, more of a hellhole. During one escape attempt, she able to contact Dr. Hifumi and was promptly saved from that hell."

"That orphanage certainly was hell, a pity of how she turned to be," commented the banker. His words contain some sympathy but that was it. He had little to waste on orphaned women. The grim postwar world he grew up in had saw to that.

The young man continued, taking a deep breath, "Hifumi conducted research on a disease he discovered in 1943 in the Marianas Islands, where he was assigned as doctor: the Hinamizawa Syndrome. He discovered it on soldiers who went paranoid and went on killing sprees before killing themselves by scratching their throats where the lymph glands would be. The first victims were conscripts from village of Hinamizawa and the garrison on the islands took twenty percent casualties from the mysterious infections alone."

"Interesting," noted another old hand, a politician from the country's west coast. "But quite farfetched."

"It is so," agreed said the Finance man. "Don't you think it could be shellshock, perhaps the result of soldiers turning to the abuse of narcotics pilfered from medical supplies? The scratching out seemed consistent with drug addicts."

"Or too many syphilitic Chinese whores the _Kempetai_ forgot to screen for," dismissed a third.

"That was the initial conclusion," replied the health official. "Test results came out negative. Survivors interviewed claimed hearing footsteps, hearing the voice of their village's diety, Oyashiro-sama, calling to them, hallucinations. Even non-natives claimed it is although we speculate it could be due to Hinamizawa conscripts confiding that fact to their comrades."

"Again, hearsay," replied the banker, unconvinced. "Just like the cult scares and the so-called UFO abductions in America. For all we know, it could be due to constant bombardment, malnutrition from shortening supplies and deteriorating living conditions."

"Sir, the island in question was relatively well off, relatively isolated I might add, and most of the incidents occurred during the lulls of the fighting."

"Calling it a syndrome would be suspect," noted Finance. "It could have been a psychological disorder like the Stendhal syndrome, the Stockholm syndrome or the Jerusalem syndrome. This Hinamizawa syndrome could simply a combination of shock of transfer to an isolated post, separation anxiety, and boredom." He had been a rival of Koizumi's, who had little love for that man and even little trust for his body of work.

"It was thought so until the autopsy results revealed otherwise. In any case, Dr. Miyo was interested with the disease and had recorded its progress. That merited him some attention from the Imperial Army General Headquarters. Autopsy reports showed increased amounts of adrenaline, swelling of the adrenal glands, and damage to the brain and spinal cord consistent with syphilis and meningitis, yet no evidence of them, or for that matter, no evidence of anything causing it at all.

"He was assigned to Unit 731 and while he made consistent recording of cases involved, he was nowhere to isolating the pathogen. He named the strange condition the Hinamizawa Syndrome, after the village of the first victims. While he had solid, consistent evidence, it was inconclusive and he couldn't identify the pathogen. Fortunately, he had a lucky break when a small outbreak in a Borneo garrison occur ed, the victims again from the village. They were flown immediately to Taiwan, where research was undertaken." Taiwan, then known as Formosa, had been a Japanese holding since they won it from the Qing Empire during the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Japan's first major conflict overseas. It is now an independent nation and the Kuomintang's last stronghold.

"Research began in earnest as he tried his best to identify the cause of the condition. It took him most of 1943 to identify the pathogen. He went to the village of Hinamizawa, ground zero, to study its history, its people, and their state of health."

"Why would he do that?" questioned Kanamori. "He's a biologist, not an anthropologist."

"He wanted to cover everything," replied the aide. "He needed to know if there was a precedent in the village's past. He dug up some interesting things. The village was an _Eta_ settlement dating as far back as the tenth century."

"Filthy, unclean savages," muttered the political godfather for Toyama Prefecture. "No surprise that a combination of their isolation in a backwater combined with their livelihoods is the cause for their pestilence." The man had regarded the _Eta_ or _Burakumin_ as nothing less than human. He had scorned them and when they formed civil rights groups in his region, he had hired thugs to break their demonstrations apart. Now he had to accommodate those distasteful rats. If Americans have controlled their niggers like they should have, they wouldn't have to worry about their own animals screaming for their rights.

"The village was known before as Onigafuchi, after the swamp nearby which local legend states was a gateway to hell. They have a culture peculiar to the area, not seen anywhere else in Japan. They worship a deity named Oyashiro-sama. According to the myth of this 'Oyashiro', the village was attacked by demons from the swamp, Oyashiro-sama descended from the heavens to stop them. The demons were subdued by Oyashiro-sama's power, and Oyashiro-sama ordered them to leave the village. But the demons had been banished from hell, and had nowhere to go. The villagers took pity on the demons, and offered to let the demons live with them. Oyashiro-sama was pleased, and granted the demons human form, so that they and the humans could coexist. Oyashiro-sama also stayed on earth to watch over them.

"Interesting," noted the godfather. "They have their own mythos."

"They have a festival to honor their god, the Watanagashi Festival, which falls on the third Sunday of has a bloody history." The people murmured quietly, then silence, the air conditioning quite audible.

"Go on," Kanamori ordered quietly.

All throughout, the tenor of the aide's voice was changing. He was less reluctant. "The festival began centuries previously as the Watanagashi (腸流し), or Intestines-Drifting Festival. It was a time to cast off sins of the villagers by sacrificing them with the blood of a living human. Said human sacrifice would be publicly tortured using the tools in the Furude Shrine in a very specific process, some of which notably involved putting nails through every joint in every finger of the victim, before finally being killed by the priest or miko, who gouges out the victim's stomach and intestines with a large, hoe-like dissection tool following an intricate dance. The corpse and its severed intestines would then be thrown into the river and wash away, symbolizing the 'drifting away' of the people's sins with the victim's innards." The doctor surprise himself for reciting this with a straight face.

That caused several of them to blanch at it. Even the ones who were in on it before. "Fucking cannibals..." was the profanity that came out of the banker's lips. In Japanese religion and culture, the concept of human sacrifice in a Shinto ritual is not only violent and cruel, but also blasphemous and profane, similar to Western depictions of Satanism. It is also for this reason that the Burakumin were discriminated. They were butchers, tanners, gravediggers, bandits, thieves and anyone who touched death as death was considered an impurity.

"They were accused of that too, sir," the aide added, "descended from demons and all. In any case, that practice had long ceased in the past." With a click the picture changed to a happy _matsuri_ in the neck of the woods. "Now, the villagers began practicing the modern Watanagashi based on a similar concept by changing the first character of the festival name, Wata- (腸), meaning intestines, with the homophone, Wata- (綿), meaning cotton. Thus was the Cotton-Drifting Festival born. Everyone in the village would contribute old coats and furniture to the village to be gutted for their leftover cotton. Said cotton would then be sewn into a large futon which would take the place of the traditional living human. On the night where the victim is traditionally subjected to the intestine gouging, the priest or miko would perform the dance and instead use the hoe to cut the futon and gouge out the cotton in place of intestines. Each villager then takes a small amount of this cotton and sets it adrift on the river to absorb and 'drift away' the sins and sadness of the villagers. All of those are conducted by Furude Family, one of the Three Great Houses.

"There is a flip side. Their god is a vengeful one. To anger him is to court his curse. Oyashiro-sama's Curse' is said to occur when Oyashiro-sama is angered. Oyashiro-sama's most well-known rules are 'don't leave the village' and 'don't enter the village.' There was also originally a rule about not being mistrustful, but this was a vaguer concept, and so it has been mostly forgotten by the time of the story. What is exactly intended by the curse is unknown, but it usually seems that the cursed either die or disappear. One way to be cursed appears to be to leave the village with no intent to return."

"Strange, bizarre, horrible, and downright disgusting," was what the professor summed up. "I wonder if they did that as a mockery of Shinto rituals?"

"A mockery of _seppuku_ ," noted the general, recalling how Yukio Mishima reacted after his attempted coup flopped spectacularly in 1970.

"No doubt, these beasts would come up with that," charged the godfather. "Besides some satisfaction at insulting their betters, what benefit would it bring them?"

"We will discuss that in depth later. Hifumi ended his trip to Hinamizawa with a finding concerning the identity of the pathogen. It was strange, really, not a bacterium or virus, but a parasite, akin to malaria. He tried to replicate the results of the condition through a number of means such as infected blood transfusions, sharing living quarters, using the same cooking and eating utensils, etc, with test subjects of various stages of health." It never occurred to them or to the late doctor that the test subjects in question were Allied, mostly Chinese, POWs, criminals, people arrested by the secret police, forced laborers, pregnant women, etc; and under realistic and often horrific conditions. They were not people to them, only lab rats used to further the boundaries of science.

"So the syndrome did work!" exclaimed the CEO of a pharmaceutical lab. "But why was his data junked in 1950?"

"The originals were destroyed in Taiwan and copies were confiscated at the end of the war. In Manchuria, a similar program based on a Pentastomida sample that attacked the intelligence lobes of the brain was recovered in China was lost as well. Takano had to start from scratch. In any case, he already established a thesis for the syndrome." He used a remote clicker for the projector. The room dimmed automatically and the first that appeared in the screen was some handwritten notes. "According to his notes, the Hinamizawa Syndrome is a neurological disease that causes anxiety and paranoia in victims leading them to perform violent acts. It attacks the brain, spinal cord, and lymph nodes. The syndrome's parasite abandons its host as soon as the host dies, leaving the researchers no way to identify the pathogen after the death of an infected person. That explains why it was difficult to isolate. It was only possible through live hosts.

"There are five levels of progress for the syndrome." He clicked again. On it were Takano's notes explaining the levels.

Level One and Two:  
Weakest levels; almost all villagers and residents of Hinamizawa are infected, although they are at the lower stages of either L1 or L2. The syndrome does not cause apparent changes until its later stages. This indicates that the entire village is highly unstable and will easily grow hostile from any stress or anxiety, such as the dam project. Some more than others are susceptible to simple paranoia and stress, which has been shown to activate the syndrome.

Level Three:  
Beginning at L3, the mental condition of the patient will start to deteriorate and they become mentally and emotionally unstable.

Level Four:  
Paranoia and hallucinations start to appear surrounding the onset of L4.

Level Five:  
Strongest level; this is when people began hallucinating of hearing 'Oyashiro-sama's footsteps', and patients are known to start clawing at their own flesh. In some cases, there is a previous psychological motive that serves as a catalyst for the scratching. Symptoms include lymph node rashes, muscle spasms, and headaches.

"Is that why Takano's report was rejected?' asked the godfather.

"Takano's report was rejected because publicly it was alarmist hearsay. However, it was rejected on several grounds. The first was obviously that the pathogen would be useless for weaponisation as there was we have no way of isolating and developing it. Second, he mentioned that it was untreatable and irreversible. We have no means of producing a cure or a vaccine but that was back in the fifties. Third, he also stated that anyone who enters the village shall be infected by Hinamizawa Syndrome no matter what. And last but not the least, that there was a Queen Carrier, which controlled the parasites in the locality. Any villager that distances himself or herself from them will succumb to the syndrome. If the carrier dies, the village will go insane in 48 hours.

"Hmm, those are some serious flaws indeed," noted Finance. "And why wasn't it scrapped decades ago?"

"The research was carried on by Takano Miyo, which broke new ground not possible back in the Fifties," explained the aide. "As you know, the parasite can be isolated. It is in our best interest to have a parasite as biological agent."

"Why is that?" The godfather was curious, his knowledge on the subject was hazy as any layman's can be.

"This isn't bacteria or virus," explained the CEO. "Both are easily subject to mutation. Bacterium is prokaryotic, meaning it lacks a cell nucleus or cell organelles. All the components simply share space and this makes mutation difficult to control as the nucleoid, which exists in the place of the nucleus, contains the cell's genetic material and this can be easily subject to external factors. A virus latches on the host's DNA in order to replicate. Eukaryotic organisms have a complex cell structure, that is a definite nucleus and other cell organelles which compartmentalize the functions of the cell. This makes mutation easier to control."

"Ah," agree the godfather. "We want something that we can control." That was something profound to him.

The aide took the floor again. "Also furthering us in that end were the strides made by Takano and the Irie institute. They managed to create the C series medicines. First was the testbed serum, C-103, followed by the vaccine C-117, and finally C-120 inhibitors. C-103 was a medicine based on an anti-body from one Rika Furude, current priestess of the Oyashiro, in 1980,capable suppressing the infection in individuals, taking them from L5 to L3 but requires administration three times daily. C-117, developed in 1982, was more potent, requiring two times instead as well as able perform as vaccine, preventing any sort of infection. In 1983, C-120 was developed, purposely made as vaccine _and_ inhibitor, capable of suppressing L5 back to the L2 or L3 with one injection."

"Incredible," said the godfather. "We have a safeguard against the damned thing used against us." Shame the animals at that little armpit of a village didn't die as they should, he didn't say.

"However," he warned, "C-120 cannot be applied on L1 or L2 individuals as C-120 works by depressing hormone levels, causing them to suffer loss of stamina and L5 symptoms."

"I supposed that those are the only side-effects," noted Finance.

"Takano also did her homework on this regard by synthesizing from C-103 H-173, a compound that accelerates an infected person's status to L5, with an improved variant, H-173-02, which can accelerate the infection within a wide area via aerosol dispersal."

"So, you conclude that weaponisation _is_ possible?" Koizumi and then Takano weren't making a financial scam after all?

"It is possible now, sir. It's only a matter of implementing it," the aide stated, his confidence, subtle and understated in full view of his betters. Some of them noted the change. Yes, he may have a future with them. Not all of them would live into another few decades.

"So weaponisation is possible, I never thought it would happen." He had to give that old bastard Koizumi his due but he still thought of his project was lunacy. How was it supposed to benefit them?

"Very interesting lecture," noted the scientist. "I find it contradictory that the syndrome can infect anyone who enters the village. Is there anything we have to worry about?"

"Yes, and what is this 'Queen Carrier?'" asked the banker curiously.

"And what factual context those animals have for their beliefs?" inquired the godfather.

The aide turned to them. "It's actually interesting about what you gentlemen have said. Takano recorded her research her scrapbook, Document 34. It's clever for her to name it as Miyo, her first name, is written using the characters for 3 and 4. That way, we'll know who she is." He clicked again, displaying her notes on the screen. "According to legend, the Descent of Oyashiro-sama is the turning point in which he intervened to save the village. According to Takano, it may of extraterrestrial in origin. In the ancient past a UFO had crashed and sank in Onigafuchi Swamp. It brought with it a parasitic bacteria that spread amongst the villagers. The villagers went mad from the infection and became 'demons' or "oni'. An alien on the ship noticed this and appeared to the villagers in what is referred to in the stories as the 'Descent of Oyashiro-sama', and used advanced technology to help repress the effects of the parasite temporarily. They then put in place rules to help contain the problem. Since the bacteria only really thrive in the local climate, leaving caused the symptoms to worsen, and the rule was put down that nobody should leave the village. The three great houses, Kimiyoshi House, Sonozaki House, and the Furude House, worshiped and protected him for years in the Furude Shrine. It wasn't bacteria, that we know now."

The three men blinked in disbelief. "What the hell? How did she come up with this?"

"It's probably the only thing that makes sense in relation to Oyashiro-sama and the syndrome. Also, the curse in actuality is a system of rules instituted in order to prevent the symptoms from manifesting and keeping the syndrome contained in their village. The parasite stabilized over the years and the incident was largely forgotten. As the incident was the basis for their control and power in the village, Miyo's notes indicate a suspicion that they were looking for a way to revive the parasite and maintain the balance of power. It was even believed that in the former shrine to the deity, the Saiguden, contains its remains."

"This is getting ridiculous," noted Finance. "Probably the only thing that stands out from an otherwise sane document."

"Not as ridiculous as it sounds. One of my students noted that _Tale of the Bamboo Cutter_ have undertones of an encounter with an extraterrestrial." The man who spoke to him was a professor, whose hobby is Classical Japanese Literature.

"Do you believe that?" Finance asked pointedly.

"No more than you believed it."

"There is another," pointed out the aide. "The Queen Carrier. According to the Document, the Queen Carrier controls the syndrome, accordingly through pheromones like a queen bee. The Queen Carrier must come from the Furude Family's female line, most likely hereditary. If the Queen Carrier dies-"

"The village collapses under L5 in 48 hours," observed Finance curtly.

The interruption caught him off-guard. He cleared his throat. "Yes, it is through. This was the basis of Emergency Manual #34, which has steps to contain the infection should she die. However, we believe it has more to do with the Placebo effect, the Queen Carrier being a pillar of psychological stability for the villagers. Killing her merely accelerates the terminal process." He paused to catch his breath.

Kanamori noted his fatigue. "You may sit down."

Grateful for the reprieve, he slightly nodded his thanks and taking a metal folding chair. "No, the thing that kept the syndrome at bay was the cicadas."

"The cicadas?" questioned the scientist.

"Yes, but before I delve into that, I'd like to explain about the parasite that caused it. Remember the lymph node rashes. Here's why."

He clicked and a diagram of the body's lymphatic system appeared. "Lymph is the fluid that circulates throughout the lymphatic system. The lymph is formed when the interstitial fluid, the fluid which lies in the interstices of all body tissues, is collected through lymph capillaries. It is then transported through lymph vessels to lymph nodes before emptying ultimately into the right or the left subclavian vein, where it mixes back with the blood.

"Since the lymph is derived from the interstitial fluid, its composition continually changes as the blood and the surrounding cells continually exchange substances with the interstitial fluid. It is generally similar to blood plasma except that it also contains white blood cells. Lymph returns proteins and excess interstitial fluid to the bloodstream. Lymph occasionally picks up bacteria and bring them to lymph nodes for destruction. Metastatic cancer cells can also be transported via lymph. Lymph also transports fats from the digestive system.

"It has a composition comparable to that of blood plasma, but it may differ slightly. Lymph contains white blood cells. In particular the lymph that leaves a lymph node is richer in lymphocytes. Likewise, the lymph formed in the human digestive system called chyle is rich in triglycerides, fat, and looks milky white. The parasite colonized mainly in the intestines, feeding and riding in the chyle into the blood stream, eventually embedding themselves in the brain and spinal cord. There is special kind of lymphocyte or white blood cell found exclusively in Hinamizawans that suppress the parasites, the Furude family having the highest concentration of any, but immunity took centuries to acquire. It's believed that taking out the intestines was necessary to keep syndrome at bay. It is even believed that they ate them as a primitive form of inoculation."

It caused a slight choir of gasps and murmurs from the ones out of the loop. The ones who knew only revealed impassive faces as the grisly fact was made known to them.

"The parasites remain relatively dormant at L1 and -2 but when the host is subject to chemical imbalances brought about by extreme forms of stress, sickness, and narcotics abuse, the parasites in the brain release chemicals identified from ergotism, affecting the brain in its perception. If the subject continues to be subjected to these over an extended period of time, general paresis occurs, causing more paranoia and increasingly violent tendencies.

"Increase in hormones interfere adversely to the production of those lymphocytes by forcing them to reposition around the nodes and the skin to fight off possible infection. The parasites in the brain are activated by the hormones, causing the most of the aforementioned symptoms. The lymphatic system responds by increasingly turning out lymphocytes but the game had been rigged from the very start. The increase in hormones trigger the parasites in the brain to cause the systems to go haywire, resulting in L5. The parasites _directly_ attacking the lymph nodes around the throat, the intense battle between the lymphocytes and parasites is interpreted by the brain, now hallucinating as formication, causing the victim to scratch out the throat, their strength increased drastically by adrenaline. Once the throat is ripped open... That's were death starts. Depending on the victim's posture, it can include suffocation caused by blood blocking the windpipe, passing out from blood lose and eventually bleeding out, the results are all the same. Once they receive the chemical signals of the host's death, the parasites burned themselves out in an effort to reproduce more in order to survive, grinding down into components not dissimilar to that of the human body cells they inhabited. Sudden exposure to normal atmospheric oxygen would kill the microbes.

"Bearing any of self-inflicted wounds, the cause of death is cardiac arrest," the aide concluded.

The scientist was astounded by the details of the lecture thus far. Technicalities never fail to amaze him this was a very good lecture considering the circumstances. "This is very outstanding. I can see why Koizumi choose you as his aide."

Then the questions came. "Can you tell us what this 'Queen Carrier' concept have any relevance to the Furude Family?" asked Finance, dubious in tone.

"What gives Takano this idea about aliens bringing the parasite here?" asked the godfather.

"What kept the syndrome from going out of the Hinamizawa area?" demanded the general, suddenly apprehensive that his men may have been exposed to a latent parasite.

Kanamori called the meeting to order, keeping the commission from deluging their presenter with questions. He turned to him. "Answer the first question, please."

He cleared his throat. "The Furude family maintains a line of priestesses to serve Oyashiro-sama. Takano believed the 'Queen Carrier' is passed down the female line for generations and great deference was given to them by the villagers. Perhaps Takano's objectivity was affected somewhere along the way, most likely by the dogmatic reliance on her grandfather's notes. The Furude family, as mentioned before, had a high number of lymphocytes containing antibodies specifically capable of suppressing the syndrome, making them practically immune. The cicadas in the region, however, were the ones responsible for containing the syndrome. In their bodies is a species of bacteria: _Wolbachia_."

The name was totally foreign to the men. They pronounced the word themselves, as if trying a new religious mantra for the first time, its utterance exotic.

"Wolbachia?" the general asked.

"Wolbachia is a genus of bacteria that affects a high proportion of anthropods including many insects. It is one of the world's most common parasitic microbes and is possibly the most common reproductive parasite in the biosphere. Its interactions with its hosts are often complex, and in some cases have evolved to be mutualistic rather than parasitic. Some host species cannot reproduce, or even survive, without _Wolbachia_ infection. This bacteria enabled mosquitoes to carry malaria and dengue without succumbing to them."

"That's a miracle!" exclaimed the scientist.

"Microbes attacking microbes?" questioned the banker. "I don't believe it!"

"How is this possible?" asked the CEO excitedly. Possibilities and profit seemed endless. "I must know."

"Wolbachia affects viruses by mutating sexual functions. In this case, they mutate the Hinamizawa parasites causing the parasites to turn from male to female, preventing procreation. That was how they control the parasites in the area. They also affect the people their as the wolbachia enters the body wherever the cicadas land such as pollinating the food crops grown by the villagers or simply be breathing the hormones in the air secreted by the cicadas. Ingested, the wolbachia travels to the intestines and suppresses the growth of the parasites in the gut. The average villager's own defense against the parasite is the wolbachia inhabiting the skin, they emit chemicals that seep through the pores into the bloodstream and travel to the brain and spinal cord to suppress the parasites. However, the wolbachia's work on the parasites affects the hosts, rendering low fertility. That's why Hinamizawa never had much of a population boom in all of its history."

"Seems like a small price to pay for living in that place," observed Finance.

"This is interesting, think of the possibilities to medical science," exalted the CEO, seeing a future - with power, prestige, and profit to be made.

"It's true about its functions but the wolbachia is the only thing that kept the village from being wiped out and it's a fragile one. Given the right set of circumstances, the Hinamizawa syndrome can still manifest in the villagers."

"At the very least we know why they didn't disappear off the face of the earth a thousand years ago," the godfather noted casually. "We can have further research in those at a later time. What matters now that Parasite project is no longer mere theoretical work and a war gaming exercise, it is an execution-able operation."

"At the very least the science side of the plan was not a total failure," said the kingmaker with satisfaction. "It even opened up possibilities with we may have overlooked." Then he faced the commission. "Alright, let's shelve this for now. What is next?"

* * *

A/N: What do you think of my ideas? In addition to adding technical details, I also added bits and pieces of the mindset of Tokyo. Next chapter, economics, weapons delivery and geopolitics.


	4. Strategy of Chaos

**Chapter 3: Strategy of Chaos**

A/N:This chapter will focus on their plan to implement the parasites. Here in this chapter, there are a lot of factual events, occurrences, and places mentioned. Now we finally enter Metal Gear territory. Read to find out why.

* * *

 _It is my opinion that in order to fight the United States we must be ready to challenge almost the entire world._  
 _-Isoroku Yamamoto_

 _We upset the global military balance of power._  
 _-Big Boss, Peace Walker Incident, 1974_

"In 1962, the Israelis had found out that the Egyptians were importing material and technicians from Germany. Both of them are related to rocketry technology, the personnel in question were formerly part of the Nazi rocketry program at Peenemunde, where V2 ballistic missiles were developed. Egypt was resorting to creating its own indigenous missile program in order to achieve military parity with Israel. It had to as the West and the Communist bloc held a monopoly on that technology and turning to either would go against its nonalignment foreign policy." The general clicked on the first of a new presentation, the photo of a Middle-Easterner on a business suit seating on a café reading a newspaper.

"Hassan Sayed Kamil, an Egyptian-Swiss arms dealer and engineer, provided Egypt with material and recruits from West Germany and Switzerland, despite a ban by both countries prohibiting the provision of weapons to Middle Eastern countries." He clicked on a group photo of the men, undated. "There men are basically are what's left behind of that program after the Americans and Soviets took their pick. A few did postwar work in France, but there wasn't much of a market for their skills then. Until Egypt came calling. They invited them to work in the Egyptian industrial complex at the Factory 333, opened in late 1953." He clicked on a photo featuring a massive construction site in the desert manned by Egyptian army engineers and civilian labourers.

"In the late 50's, the Jabal Hamzah ballistic missile test and launch facility was built to test fire rockets at Jabal Hamzah, 62 kilometres west-northwest of Cairo ." Another click and on the projector was a military parade featuring missiles resting on their transporters as they were being towed in public. "Egypt's rocket program came to the world's attention when it successfully carried out four successful test launches in July 1962 and paraded its first two models, the Al Zafir and Al Kahir SRBMs, in Cairo, much to the world's shock and interest. The flow of rocket expertise from West Germany to Egypt damaged Israeli-West German relations, though not the payment of reparations and covert arms agreements. Israeli fears worsen when disaffected Austrian scientist Otto Joklik approached the Mossad with a claim that the rockets were to be equipped with radioactive wastes and development of nuclear warheads was underway. In mid-August, the Mossad managed to obtain a document written by German scientist Wolfgang Pilz, detailing certain aspects of Factory 333 – that nine hundred rockets were built, and additional, weaker evidence that there were plans to develop chemical, biological and gas-filled warheads for these rockets."

Click, a pictured of a balding man in shades and semi-casual business suit, Isser Harel, and a man on trial, wearing a pair of headphones. "This convinced Mossad chief Isser Harel, whose operations against former Nazis netted Adolf Eichmann-" he pointed to Eichmann wearing translation headphones – "and was influenced by the Holocaust to launch Operation Damocles in the same month to target German scientists and technicians. To gain the support of the Israeli population, the Mossad planted ominous stories about Egypt's weapons development run by German scientists. They carried out letter bombs and abductions, their main tactic against scientists involved in program. They threatened their families with violence in order to convince them to return to Europe. Pilz, for example, was killed in his office by a parcel in November 27, 1962 while it injured his secretary; five Egyptian workers were killed by another parcel bomb in a rocket factory in Cairo's Heliopolis suburb, etc. The operation was publicly exposed when Joklik and another Mossad agent were arrested in Switzerland for threatening the daughter of an electronics expert involved with the program. This caused a scandal in Israel and the Ben-Gurion government was forced to publicly deny it and other attacks. This eventually forced Harel to resign from the Mossad. In any case, death threats and diplomatic pressure forced the scientists out of Egypt by the end of 1963."

"What a pity," noted Finance. "So close to a real start and yet thwarted all the same."

The Home Minister replied, "I don't think the Israelis would enjoy having its neighbors armed with rockets, not after Hitler's slaughter of their people."

"The program should have remained secret, not bragged about. Their security had lapses the Mossad exploited to the full."

"That lesson cannot be overstated. But the main point is application. The problem for us is a delivery system and a strategy revolved around the pathogen." The general sat down. "Obviously, missiles are out of the question. Other means are to be utilized. "

"What other means?" asked STA man.

"Anything not requiring the use of military ordnance. The strategy around it is Plan _Mappo_. This is only possible with an intelligence network."

At the mention of _Mappo_ , some of the men felt a chill in the room. _Mappo_ is the Japanese name for the last age of Buddhism, The Latter Day of the Law or Decline of Law, the Degenerate Dharma, a 10,000 year period in which the Dharma lost significance in the world, causing chaos and corruption. Many adherents and most men of this room believed that age to be the present time. No doubt an apt if chilling name for using a weapon of mass destruction.

"Such a bold name for something as monstrous," noted the Burakumin-hating godfather. "Will it work?"

A handsome young man replied, "I have every confidence it will work – so the theory goes."

"And how?" The whole room turned to him.

The general answered for him. "I believe that Tatsuro Miyamoto has knowledge of the specific parts of the plan." A brilliant mind who replaced his predecessor in the previous decade, Tatsuro Miyamoto ran Tokyo's intelligence network across the world. His superb operation had gathered data from all over the globe and touched on unlikely sources, partners and players, thus evading much attention from the heavy caliber hitters of the intelligence community such as the CIA, KGB, MI5 and -6, etc. "I have worked with him on this plan."

"Gentlemen, if you please." He stood up and prepared his presentation for the projector. Then he began his spiel, clicking to show a set of pictures, some featuring Soviet workers of a collective farm or kolkhoz, harvesting wheat in farms. Others American farm scenes such as a tractor pulling a plough or a combine harvesting grain. "It is highly-publicized in the West, especially the United States, that Soviet Union imports grain, especially from the aforementioned countries. Western press touts it as failure of the communist collectivization policy and superiority of Western agricultural and business practices."

Another click, took them a picture of a Chinese factory, being toured by Communist party officials and business executives from other countries. "The People's Republic of China has finally opened up to the rest of the world, especially economically in order to reverse the disastrous effects of the Cultural Revolution. Many countries, including our own, are eager to do business with the Red Dragon, although not the satisfaction of our friends in Taiwan." Taiwan was not feeling so well as their neighbor's open-door policy threatened to isolate them politically as their raison d'être was slowly being undermined, that is a free, democratic China in opposition to communism.

Then a click featuring an an aerial footage of an armed jungle camp with people busy and in another photo, Atlanta police making an arrest in an inner-city neighborhood. "The drug epidemic is on the rise around the world, especially in the United States. Hard drugs like cocaine and heroin are in hot demand, their street value rising and violent crime over the control of the drug trade increases."

A fourth click and two pictures, the first picture of the Solidarity trade union in another demonstration in Warsaw, ringed by riot police, fire trucks, and armed troops with their armored personnel carriers; the second featuring two West German policemen evacuating a civilian in shabby clothes. "Economic mismanagement by the Polish government had provoked widespread unrest throughout the country. Not even the imposition of martial law would dampen the unrest. This is minor at the moment but a symptom of the Soviet Union is slowly losing control over its sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Even in East Germany people are escaping the Iron Curtain at the risk of certain death and imprisonment."

A fifth click, featured a problem of the times: In one photo is a propaganda photo of the Provisional Wing of the Irish Republican Army with masked gunmen toting rifles defiantly with the Irish tricolours on the background emblazoned with the words, "Erin Go Bragh", which translated to "Ireland forever"; the second photo is of Palestinian Liberation Organization fighters drilling under the hot desert sun, their faces written with hard anger and determination; the third photo had anticommunist _contra_ s preparing for a patrol back into Nicaragua, a third footage saw a jet warplane plummeting down the sky with a plume of fire and smoke, its air force insignia not visible through it; the last showed Afghan mujahedeen about to execute a captured Soviet soldier. "The Cold War has entered its fourth decade and a new round of violence has sprung across the world. Terrorism and regional conflict is on the rise, East and West have a new brinkmanship tournament going featuring everything from sports to espionage." He clicked to produce a pair of photos, first showing West German GSG-9 commandos arresting two members of the Red Army Faction, the second was Soviet transports refueling in a Libyan airport.

He turned to the commission. "Where they see problems, we should see opportunity."

"I do have some idea where this is going," admitted the STA man, "how this it fulfill Plan _Mappo_?"

"In due time, sir, in due time," replied Miyamoto. "The Soviet Union is self-sufficient in everything. Resources, infrastructure, and industry. However, their system is inefficient. It is partly true that their agriculture has some very serious flaws and the Soviet Union has to import agricultural products from the Third World. But the country can harvest food, just that it can't set its priorities straight. The decision to raise grain harvests to feed livestock in order to meet the demand for meet has imposed a strain on the farms. Poor harvests in the 70's resulted in the Soviet Union importing grain from the United States and other countries, driving up food prices. These imports increased dramatically after 1980 because of poor Soviet harvests from 1979 into the early 1980s and the United States grain embargo against the Soviet Union in 1980 and 1981. The one reason is that bread prices are very low, subsidized by the state. The Soviet Union has made bread cheap but this has put at burden on their agriculture so when in poor harvests, they have no choice but to ship grain in from outside. There's a political reason for that: bread is kept cheap as they remembered how the Revolution in 1917 started with bread riots. They do not want to repeat that. Attempts to raise food prices were met with bloody riots, such as in Novocherkassk in June of 1962. After 1962, there were no more attempts to raise food prices, except by stealth. Khrushchev began the practice of periodically importing grain in 1963.

"In Red China, the country is committing itself to economic reform. Their agriculture received quite a shock when these reforms in respect to that sector were implemented but they are catching on. Demand for farm produce in the cities is up and the sector is doing its job satisfactorily. Of course, we already have some investments and markets in China, especially machinery and technical advice. Chinese merchant marine is busy as conduit of commerce, bringing exports out and imports in.

"Drug use, long been a problem, has skyrocketed since 1980. This was the result of the 60's counterculture which promoted drug use, the charged social-cultural atmosphere that encouraged its use, crime cashing in the demand and the complicity of certain governments in the trade in the context of the Cold War." That drew a snort from the general. It's no secret to these men that the United States is involved in that nefarious trade through its Central Intelligence Agency. They permitted Corsican mafia of France to smuggle heroin in exchange for fighting communism in Marseilles and other Mediterranean ports. Opium and heroin funded CIA operations in Indochina and now the trend repeats itself. "Rising economic prosperity has got some people to spend money on narcotics. A smokeable version of cocaine called crack is appearing in American cities is much affordable than the its parent substance. Not to be outdone heroin and marijuana use is growing as well. Major crime syndicates have gained experience in the drug trade throughout the sixties and seventies and that has began to show. The CIA, with its funding subject to congressional inquiry, needed an alternate source of income. The drug trade provided that. Reports from my people in the field indicate this is so with cocaine for the contras and are allegedly in the process of using opium for the war in Afghanistan."

"Where does _Mappo_ fit in?"

"The first phase of Plan Mappo has the operatives inserted in China, the Soviet Union, the United Stares, the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia, countries that are significant trading partners of China, especially Africa, and South America. They are to contaminate food supplies, drug shipments, and products with the parasites. Another group would be in place to use H-173-02 to enhance the effect. It would start in the Golden Triangle, Colombia, and for outbreaks, Africa. The pathogen-laden drugs would create a wave of violence unmatched in the 60's. At the same time, grain and other items exported to the USSR would be laced likewise. Material imported to China will be laced at ports of entry and our teams would be around to contaminate food storage, water, products flowing between the countryside and cities. Europe, Africa, and the rest of Asia is the exception, the disease would have to travel there by itself."

"Most ambitious," noted Finance. "If only as theoretical exercise."

"Very well-thought out but how do will this succeed without everyone pushing the nuclear trigger?" questioned the scientist."

"How do you do that under the noses of Soviets and the Chinese?" asked Home Ministry man.

"For starters, the Soviet Union, would be forced to pull out its troops from Eastern Europe in order to maintain order at home, leaving the Warsaw Pact to face their domestic problems on their own. The Americans would have a crime wave to handle. We will leak stories of an outbreak of a new disease that travels from the south - sometime after it happens - and had reached America. With AIDS and herpes being a problem, they'll not see it for what it was, a terrorist attack. On the matter of the communist bloc, they would not suspect a thing from our business executives and technical teams traveling to their countries to work. It's easier in China as they are more interested in business than politics. We and our allies will hunker down until this has died out."

"Really?" questioned a senior diplomat of the Foreign Ministry. "It's common knowledge that Great Britain, France, and India possess nuclear weapons. American forces in Europe as part of their commitment to NATO have nuclear arsenals in the form of artillery shells and airdropped bombs, protests of missile deployments not withstanding. And rumor has it that Israelis have them, even Pakistan is said to be in the game."

This caught Miyamoto offguard but he retained his pokerface. The general was prepared for this and had to admit it, "We did not anticipate that. The exercise is ongoing as of now." The second sentence was partly true, they have considered the French and British might use their missiles in paranoia if they thought the outbreak was a prelude to an attack. American forces would need authorization before they used their nukes. Not to mention the navies, with their missile submarines. The nuclear wild card has been a nightmarish thorn on their side, they have witnessed it first hand.

"So how do execute this plan without turning the planet into a roasted cinder?" Finance asked more sharply.

"The plan is sound," said the kingmaker, keeping the peace before they lose it. "We just need to fine tune some of the details like how we guard against our own plague." He asked Miyamoto, "Who do you think would be responsible for the first phase? Specifically the deployment of the pathogen."

He let on a small smile. "We have private forces at our disposal. As of this moment, the _Yamainu_ will be disbanded but most of its number will have jobs in a private force in Indonesia whose headquarters is based in a tax-haven in the Pacific."

"Private forces?" It was a curious term to the diplomat.

"Yes, security forces for hire. You may not heard of it but they are the coming thing in the business world. Essentially mercenaries contracting their services as a corporation rather collections of individuals. It was pioneered by an ex-Special Forces soldier known only as Big Boss and an ex-JGSDF man."

"Big Boss?" asked another military man. "The legendary soldier?"

"He's a myth!" snapped Finance. "A legend that exists only in shadows."

"His background may be shaky but he does exist, if only as a phantom in intelligence circles. His partner is one Kazuhira Miller, the former SDF man."

Finance had a look that said nonplussed. "Miller... An America?"

"Where did I hear that name before?" Home Ministry asked himself but aloud for the benefit of the people in the room.

The general answered the questions, "Kazuhira Miller was born in 1946, his mother a prostitute and his father was an American officer who worked as staff member of the Government Section of Allied GHQ under General Whitney. He was not a citizen, merely a resident as his father was unknown. At the age of ten his mother was already suffering from syphilis. A few years later he learned about his father from American servicemen who frequent his shop. His father picked him and he took his chance, going back with him to the US, leaving his mother in a hospital. Studied in an Ivy League university. Returned to Japan upon graduation. By then his mother did not recognize him, the disease had progressed significantly. He joined up at the Self-Defense Force to pay for hospitalization."

"Ah, I remember him," Home Ministry finally said. "His name appeared in an investigation report concerning an accident." The "accident" in question had concerned the death of a theoretical physiques engineer from Tokyo University when his car crashed into a ravine after being pushed off by a SDF supply truck. In reality, he was involved in the Alphabet Project's nuclear program and was going to leak it to the world press. And he then remember several more times his name was mentioned in any file involving the SDF in relation to "Tokyo's" activities.

"Miller was a good policeman," continued the general, "while not a brilliant investigator, was superb organizer. He was able to run several cases at once, keeping a consistently excellent performance record."

"And yet he had been close on numerous occasions to revealing us," Home Ministry noted.

"It's for that reason we never promoted him." He then added, "We were afraid that he might have ties with CIA after having spent his time in the States for education. He had left shortly after his mother died. Drifted from one dead end job to another before leaving the country as a soldier of fortune."

"Shame the man was on the wrong side of the fence. If he had stayed he would have made general by now."

"General?" spat the godfather in disdain. "That Yankee half-breed?" He scoffed. "Such wastrels are not to be allowed in the SDF! There is no way to ascertain their loyalty. Only true Japanese should be allowed to take up arms for their country. Why was he allowed to enter as a soldier?"

"We needed qualified personnel for administrative duties at the time," the general answered. "His credentials fit the requirements, which he exceeded in every way, and there were not a lot of Japanese graduates eager to join the armed forces, with anti-war sentiment and attractive job offers from the corporations."

"When did he leave the Self Defense Force?" asked the Home Minister.

"He left in 1970, after the the Mishima fiasco. He clearly felt that his skills are needed elsewhere."

"I see. Hopefully, things would change for the better for you."

"I really do hope so." _I doubt it_.

"Our security in our research is good," said Tatsuru. "The strategy that me and my uniformed colleague created is sound. _Mappo_ is to be executed at the proper moment, two years from now at best. The pathogen and the accelerating agent will be available in sufficient quantities by the end of this year, deployment ready at early March at the latest. The C-117 will be manufactured in several sites, half of them in Japan. Domestic distribution will be ready at the end of 1983. Sites in Taiwan and Indonesia would handle production for other parts of the world, starting in select portions of Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe."

"How do you intend to distribute the vaccine?" asked Koizumi's aide. "We can't just send the vaccines out without blowing the lead off on the operation."

"C-117 is distributed within the vaccines of common communicable diseases such is influenza, typhus, polio, the like, in the form of sugar-coated micropellets where the sugar coating is eaten by the body to release the vaccine. It's agreed that the vaccines may not be distributed in time prior to deployment but when the outbreak occurs and the news leaked at the proper channels, demand may sore up and covert distribution will no longer be needed."

"Such an incredible idea...," the CEO said, trying his best to contain excitement and apprehension. He felt like he was trading his soul to the devil for profit. "Ghastly, though. With the potential casualty rates..."

"Yes, the topic of casualties is a very hard one to swallow," observed Kanamori, "but I don't see any other way around should we push through with this plan. If you have any reservations with the plan, please say it now."

"I do," called out Finance. "The casualties are more than just statistics. We may end up turning back the clock on human progress. We may end raising some countries back to the stone age. War, chaos, anarchy, those things on a grand scale are not going to be good for business." The old hands can clearly remember the hardship and privations of the late war to immediate postwar period. They fear the worst for their people.

"Indeed," agreed the diplomat. "I supposed that Japan will mostly be safe. That still leaves the question of which parts of the world should get the vaccine."

"Never mind the vaccine," countered the banker, "how is this plan supposed to get off the ground? Who will handle it?"

Tatsuru smiled. Even as they spoke to each other, revisions and additions to the still-infant plan had been made in his mind. He nodded in acknowledgement. "Thank you for bringing those topics up. For starters, our allies in Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand would want whole segments of their population vaccinated, with Taiwan wanting large portions of the Chinese mainland vaccinated as they want to reclaim the whole country after all." When he meant whole segments, it mean only those the governments have deemed priority for the vaccine. Political enemies and ethnic groups rebelling against the government will be taken cared of by the outbreak. "Singapore and Hong Kong will receive shipments as matter of course and so as India, as compensation for their assistance in creating new cultivars of food crops that are resilient and productive in poor environments with low environmental impact. After the outbreak runs its initial course, the vaccine can be used as a bargaining chip to extract certain concessions.

"As for the handling of deployment, it would be handled by private forces that we control, assisted and abetted by radical groups and criminal organizations whom we can steer into the proper direction. Home Minister, I'm sure you can find people who can be of assistance to this enterprise."

The Home Minister nodded in agreement. "I'll do what I can. Your plan is quite brilliant by the way." In the Japanese penal system, there were many people serving life sentences with no possibility of parole for a different range of crimes. A lot of them were Yakuza who prefer incarceration in loyalty to their organizations rather than receive light treatment for confessing criminal involvement. Not a problem, really. "Tokyo" has a quid pro quo with Japan's criminal underworld, perpetuating the government's odd relationship with it. Their fortunes were tied ever since the Meiji era. Between the wars, their criminal networks allowed the government to gather intelligence. They profited from the trade in opium, smuggled goods, and women in China. They helped stopped the communists in the dark postwar days for the CIA. For this reason, there were no violent wars between syndicates and the police the way it happened in other countries. The Yakuza will be helpful in this, providing men and logistics, only they would not know what their doing. No sense in letting criminals in the plan.

"Thank you. It's easy for us in Africa as private forces run security for corporations working there. Many of our own hire them to protect investments. That puts us in a position to contaminate goods bound for Chinese ports. The men furnished by the Home Ministry and my Yakuza contacts will be sure to contaminate heroin shipments. And America's nuclear arsenal in western Europe was mentioned." He smiled. "Don't worry. If the outbreak occurs in overseas bases, would anyone trust a lunatic around nukes?" That caused a chorus of chuckles.

"Still leaves the problem of the West," observed the banker. "What if the Soviets did not pull their forces out to contain unrest in their own country? What if they suspect the outbreak was a prelude to a NATO attack and instead send more into a powder keg situation? They do not want to lose all of Eastern Europe."

"They won't but they can be convinced that it's a naturally occurring outbreak. The plan is to be executed in different stages. Initial stage would to cause small outbreaks in the relatively remote regions of Africa, where these would receive minimal news coverage by Western media. We spread word of this though to cause some panic though not in the way of AIDS. At the same time, drug-related violence increases from as contamination through consumption of narcotics or handling them. Second stage, the deployment of the parasites in the target areas. They are divided into smaller phases to mimic the spread of a naturally-occurring pandemic as much as possible. The second stage for China will involve deploying a form of rice blight, which will drive infection rates as stress over rice shortages drive people to revolt, exacerbated as they consumed infected rice and touch infected items. At mid-point, we will release word of it anonymously as an outbreak. By then, the Kremlin will be convinced that it has happened. They cannot ignore the signs in their intelligence reports and in their imported Western televisions tuned in to satellite, especially as it hit them in their own turf; so would Beijing. It would be confirmed via the Hotline between Washington and Moscow."

The commission, who listened intently, nodded in acknowledgement. "You make a strong case for the plan."

"Alright, since this plan is very workable to say the least," said the general. "We should call this Operation _Nihonto_."

"Of course, the strategy is mainly focused on deployment and control of the outbreak. We should start thinking about the aftermath, how do we profit from all of this, lest it becomes a Pyrrhic victory?"

* * *

A/N: Up Next is money and power.


	5. New World Order Miroku

**Chapter 4: New World Order Miroku**

A/N: Now I'm not an expert in economics, the economic ideas I took where based from the 1981 movie _Rollover_ and the reboot of Tom Clancy's most famous character, _Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit_ so please correct me in my assumptions about economics. However, the first part is mainly a summary of Japan's rapid economic recovery and how it achieved it.

* * *

 _...in one word: We wish to throw no one into the shade, but we demand our own place in the sun._  
 _-_ Bernhard von Bülow

 _I wonder if our politicians, among whom armchair arguments about war are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices._  
-Isoroku Yamamoto

The commission has shelved Operation _Nihonto_ for the moment, now that at its basic level, it's actionable. What they were discussing was what do with the aftermath. And now it's heating up.

"Operation _Nihonto_ will be implemented," said the intelligence man, "little by little according to the prevailing political and economic conditions. Timing is necessary, gentlemen."

"I still believe that it's a bad idea," countered the banker. "Even if we managed to vaccinate all of Japan, the damage is still great. Global trade will be disrupted, finance will be thrown to chaos, communications will be broken; poverty, famine, anarchy, will become common place. Yes, our country is immune but our people will suffer and the future before them is bleak. This gonna be worse than 1931."

"Assuming we all panic," questioned the general. "We stay the course."

"We stay the _course_ but would the rest of the world will? And would our allies do the same?"

"We let them in little by little," said Tatsuru calmly. "The vaccines are again going to be our bargaining chip."

"They will not be enough. How do we save enough of the world population to start over?"

"I doesn't sit well with me," said the professor. "Our people will suffer so much in the coming years."

"Our people have grown too soft from prosperity," the general pointed out sharply. "We need to put some backbone in them soon."

Finance snapped, "But still does not mask the horror of everything watching everything we achieved fall apart before our very eyes."

"It would be a hard time for me keeping order in our country," Home Ministry wryly quipped. "We may end creating an insurgency in our own soil."

"Has anyone forgotten that the finger may still be in the nuclear trigger..."

The barbs flew rapidly in the commission. The kingmaker sighed as nothing like ever happened since 1975, when the legendary soldier's steel-stilted fortress fell into the drink. No one anticipated how they would react once they reached this stage. "Order! ORDER!" The loud voice, used sparingly, hushed up the commission. He looked at everyone. "May I remind that we called this meeting to order to reassess our goals for our country's future. I saw we all get our heads straight in this one." His strong voice carried his authority. "Anyone want to speak out?"

Finance raised his hand. The kingmaker nodded. "As you can see, the plan is quite rash and to put it bluntly, digging our own grave. If I may ask, is there an alternative to _Nihonto_?"

"Not that we know off at the moment," admitted Tatsuru. But being the gracious man in the presence of his more experienced elders, he conceded, "But I am willing to hear some fresh ideas."

"Well, for starters, how do we protect our interests?" asked the CEO. "If _Nihonto_ begins, we may need a hedge against the adverse effects of the outbreak if we are to effectively exploit the outcome."

"How will we do that?" the banker asked. "America is one of our biggest markets and in it sits New York, the financial capital of the world. If the outbreak hits fever pitch there, we will be brought down with _it_."

"We have no exit strategy for an economic collapse of that country," agreed the scientist.

"Then it is a dead end," concluded Finance.

"I think we are all hasty," said a senior aide to the the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, already the subject of rumors of who will head the all-important government ministry when the incumbent steps down. He had kept his peace until now. "Some of our goals can be accomplished without the resorting to Plan Moppa. Already, our economy has been doing well. Our exports to America have increased tenfold since the last fiscal year. We are on our way to be the largest creditor nation besides Saudi Arabia, with our banks lending millions to borrowers."

"How does that help us?" the general demanded, wary eyes on his colleague. "Are we gonna drown them in Toyotas? Flood their streets with Hondas?" The tone was a skeptical, mocking one. He was not entirely ignorant of economics or finance. He had a minor course on the former.

"Our economy is to be the key to our future," said the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. "We've long protected it so the Americans won't have us by the balls. Now it can be an instrument to our policies. We already have investments and markets in South-East Asia and we are making good time in Africa and Latin America." He smiled. "We can build back the dream."

Then the professor's eyes widened as the treasurer's words translated into his head. "The Greater Co-Prosperity Sphere?"

His utterance of the words utterance silenced the whole room. They all turned to MITI and Finance. "How are we to achieve this?" asked the banker.

"I am glad you asked, Kanamori-san," said the MITI man. He held a remote control for the slide projector. The lights dimmed automatically and a chart filled the screen at the back wall. "Our country's gross national was the world's second largest —just behind the United States. Our growth took a four percent annual jump following fiscal year 1980 which ended with US$9,068 . We have very optimistic figures that project it to a GNP of more than 20,000 in 1990." That caused murmurs of approval from everyone around.

"And with apologies." He clicked again and it was a black-and-white photo of a family sitting around the ruins of their home. At that sight murmurs died, the men passive as they looked on at the devastation that seemed to be from another century. "This is our country, after the war ended for for us." He paused so to he can listen to what they have to say. "We've come a long way from that, my friends-" he pointed to the screen -"to this." He swept his arms wide as if to embrace the whole room.

The general snorted. "Are we going to have lesson in economics and their role in bringing back the country?"

"It is necessary," observed Finance. "Although we will not overlook your role in this endeavor, nor in the future."

"I see." That came out cold.

The MITI man continued, "Well then, gentlemen. 1945 was the worst year in the 20th century for our country. Everything was in shambles. Our people are spent, our infrastructure totally destroyed and our future bleak. We have signed a peace treaty to the Allies, who occupied our country and administering it. What saved us from being treated like Germany in 1918 was postwar politics." He clicked again. The picture on the wall was now that of Soviet May Day Parade of 1956, troops and tanks marching. Then he clicked again to a picture of Mao Tse-tung addressing soldiers of the People's Liberation Army. "Communism, the ideological threat that supplanted fascism. That was the grim and foreboding thought that occupied the minds in the capitalist democracies after the war. The old ways we're sinking. In Europe battlelines were being drawn between the East and West, both consolidating their gains and rebuilding their shattered countries. The war affected the colonial powers, so spent by the conflict that maintaining their empires was costly and unpopular. The new political atmosphere after 1945 was unstable, ripe for change. Both the Americans and Russians knew the changes in the wind and what it bodes for them. For the Soviet Union, it is to lead the world's proletariat in the final struggle against capitalism. For the Americans it is keeping the threat of communism contained. In Asia, we have the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, which the Americans saw have ominous designs in the Far East. Their Domino Theory suggests that if one country were to be have a communist insurgency, it would infect its neighbors. If all of Asia falls to the bear, the world will be split apart, putting the West in an even more difficult position against the Communist bloc.

"And for that reason the Americans regarded us as the front lines. They occupied our country and we become recipients of their massive aid programs. It was to ensure that we did not fall to the Soviet orbit. The alternative was an impoverished Japan will turn to the Soviet Union, thus gaining it access to the Pacific, something they wanted back in the Czarist days.

"We also know that Americans were not totally altruistic with their intentions. They wanted a trading partner and an ally, which translated to market and vassal. Not an equal in any sort of way. So the moment the government made economics its priority soon after it was founded. Our economic policy from those days had two objectives: growth and protection for local industry and an export market.

"In order to gain our cooperation, the Americans have agreed to certain concessions: Reverse Course. They are to stop prosecuting our leaders, they are to breaking up our zaibatsu and our yakuza if we are to to stop communism from infecting our country. We are to be given a free hand with dealing with leftists radicals with their blessing within the parameters of our agreements. Our Emperor was saved from being in the docks." The men in the room agreed though using the emperor's name was little too close to home for the old hands.

"With all that liberal idealism out of the way, we were able to focus on the practical problem of bringing our country from the brink. Yes, our economy was slowly getting back on its feet, mainly through aid and catering to the Allies' needs but we needed more. We needed to import to grow and develop, and we needed to generate exports to pay for those imports. Quite a paradox.

"And the Korean War came, the first test of our economic experiment. The United Nations fight its first battle in the Cold War. And our country raked a tidy and necessary profit from it. We supplied ammunition, spare parts, and equipment, much cheaper rather than to ship them over halfway across the world. We provided labor in logistics and repair. Our ships were there in Incheon and Wosan."

"Very interesting," commented another commission member, from a labor union with close ties to major industries. "Why haven't I heard of it?"

"Because it was not a popular topic that day. We sought to keep it that way. Shame, we could have used a few laughs about how we helped the Koreans kill each other." And it did just that of the men in the room, easing much of the tension they began the meeting with. In the general mindset of the Japanese, Korea was an entity hardly worth any relevance outside of security concerns, if they bothered to think of it at all. To the men in the room and to a great extent of Japanese upper-crust, they regarded the people of the peninsula the same way the British regarded the Irish and the German regarded the Poles in the days past: little more than a subservient people who should be grateful to their betters.

"After the war was over, we knew our economy was working and proceeded to the next step. We had difficulty exporting enough to pay for our imports until the mid-1960s, and import control remained in place to control the deficits. We also began the postwar period with heavy import barriers. We put a quota on almost every product imported from the outside, most of them heavily-tarriffed, and MITI can decide which company or sector of the economy receives priority in the foreign exchange in order to pay for imports. These policies protected our country's newborn industry and kept the chronic trade deficits from becoming worse.

"Our main focus was export. It was to be our country's ladder out of poverty and instability. The Korean War prove that. And it became more urgent than ever as the war winded down and so the services we provided to the United Nations. There are two ways to it. The first was creating world-class industries that can initially substitute for imports and then compete in international markets. The second was to provide incentives for firms to export. We chose for the first two decades the latter, we relaxed taxes and provided assistance to build export industries. We process imported raw material, add value to them and export some of the output. The more we add value to them, the higher the industrial ladder we go. To accomplish it, our government directed the economy through industrial policy rather than the laissez-faire approach favored by the Americans, otherwise we would have been like Europe during the Great Depression.

"Again, MITI was at the forefront of this, coordinating the government and private industry on how to manage the economy which introduced three factors. Out of it was the cooperation of everyone from civil servant, businessman, banker, board executive down to the man in the assembly line. We encouraged everyone to work together; our schools began to put out a more competent and reliable workforce that are dedicated to their work and took on the challenges handed down to them, a benefit of the Americans letting us take care of our local Reds. We kept the business and finance sectors in line through the Bank of Japan, if anyone of them rocks the boat in pursuit of his own gains, he will soon sink together with us." The last time anyone had left the banks to their own devices was the Great Depression. Their country will not repeat that mistake, personal profit at the expense of the health and vitality of their country. "Last but not the least, political. The Article 9 of the Constitution disavows the use of warfare by our country as an instrument of policy, which permitted us to allocate resources to building our economy rather than our armies , quite ironic." That caused some of the military men, especially the general, to snort. "Korea and Taiwan are beholden to threats just nearby, forcing them to choose guns over butter. We don't have such worries. Even the Soviets are failing to realize this as their military power continues to rise at the expense of their civilian economy.

"By the time the 'Golden Sixties' began we are practically steaming on our own road to success. Sure, the GATT and IMF were pressuring us to liberalize and Hayato Ikeda's plans were met with severe opposition over trade liberalization at home but we kept the course, offering small concessions to both parties to placate them and allow us to continue unimpeded. There was some major interruption with during the 1973 Oil Crises, which forced us to conserve our energy reserves carefully but our economy was growing stronger than ever.

"Today, the strength of our economy is unmatched anywhere in the world. We have markets and investments globally. America and Europe is doing its best to match our growth and so far we are two steps ahead of them. If this keeps going on, we will become the dominant economy of the world." The presentation ended and everyone clapped their hands.

"Sugoi! Sugoi!" cheered the politician. "Although I had been involved with some of the economic planning back in the day, I never knew that this would take us this far."

"I agree," said the scientist. "We have achieved so much in our lifetime. Anything is possible now."

"Indeed, it is true," conceded the general. "May I ask: Where this lead us? Will it lead us to our goal that was set more than 34 years ago? And what of the armed forces? Are they any relevant?"

"Thank you for bringing that up as it is precisely one of the topics we need to discuss here

"I would also like to ask how do we go about achieving this plan to change the world when we crumble it."

The banker took his cue. "Tokyo today is now a major financial center, home of some of the world's major banks, financial firms, insurance companies, and the world's largest stock exchange, the Tokyo Securities and Stock Exchange. Even here, however, the recession took its toll. In the decades following World War II, Japan implemented stringent tariffs and policies to encourage the people to save their income."

"Of course, of course, our people have more money. Where would that money go?" asked the scientist.

"With more money in banks, loans and credit became easier to obtain, and with Japan running large trade surpluses, the yen appreciated against foreign currencies. This allowed local companies to invest in capital resources much more easily than their competitors overseas, which reduced the price of Japanese-made goods and widened the trade surplus further. And, with the yen appreciating, financial assets became very lucrative.

"A lot of money will be available for investment elsewhere," concluded the banker.

"If we can keep its value while the dollar plummets," said the general.

"Trust us, the yen will hold," the banker said. "Provided you can control _Nihonto_ in critical stages."

"Let's not forget that secrecy is key here," said the kingmaker. "Any leak of this, even a tiny one would put the whole enterprise in jeopardy."

"Operational security is top priority," assured Tatsuru.

"Now we get back to how do we control the fallout of _Nihonto_ ," said the kingmaker.

"We transfer our assets elsewhere little by little as _Nihonto_ progresses," said the diplomat.

"Yes, but we can't do it alone," said the general. "If we are to successfully wrest control the Americans of the global economy, we need people who can at least pick up some of the muscle. Spread the risk as much as possible. We can't gamble our entire economic might in _Nihonto_. We need to let others into this." The subtext was clear, Japan needed allies to pull this off, not just on the operations side but in economics as well so as not to put all their eggs in one basket.

"I'm surprised that your a bit of an internationalist, general," mused Finance.

"My job takes me to some unexpected places," he replied.

"Such a pleasant surprise. How do we keep the US from dragging us down us down and the world?" asked the kingmaker.

"I have some acquaintances in the Middle East and the Caribbean," said the banker. "Rich billionaires with ties to their governments. One of their financial consultants came up with a plan with me. Told him that it's study concerning economics in times of disaster. It was quite brilliant that we implemented it with them and more of their friends. The plan is fool-proof, we can implement anytime we want to."

The kingmaker looked at the banker curiously. "Proceed."

"They have a secret slush for asset transfers. Account Number 21214. It is used to purchase gold as a hedge against the dollar if it collapses. Much of that gold is transferred out of the country and into their coffers."

"How are we involved in this scheme?" The kingmaker was now listening intently.

"We have secreted billions of dollars in shadow investments. Massive currency accounts, all in U.S. Treasuries. We made a total commitment to U.S. dollars when there's major natural disasters or times of adverse economic conditions."

"What does it mean?"

"It's external sterilized intervention."

"Please make it clear." The kingmaker's familiarity with economics wasn't specific.

"The dollar should be going down, but it's up. Reagan's economic reforms is picking up steam and now people are investing in a stronger dollar. A few cents every day, the past week. Ours allies effectively are undermining them."

"Why?"

"The plan is to collapse the dollar and collapse the US economy. It'll be timed accordingly to follow a breakdown of peace and order."

"No, that would be insane. Those billionaires and us would lose as much as anybody in a collapse."

"No. No, no, no, the West will lose more as we shift assets around. At once they start to sell, the rest of the world will dump every dollar they have."

"All right, let's say it's happened. Let's say you're right. What's the outcome?"

"We will recover. They won't."

"They don't have or control as much resources as we have already."

"It has happened before: the 17th century Tulip Mania that gripped Holland, the South Sea Bubble of 1720, the Soviet Famine of 1932."

"Hyperinflation," he breathed at the ominous thought.

"Bread lines. Rioting," added the banker.

"I know, I get it."

"And at first, though, they'll call it the American crisis, but within about six weeks, they're gonna start calling it what it is." He paused. "The Second Great Depression."

Everyone felt their moves agape. "A second Great Depression?" asked the diplomat.

"Yes, the Great Depression destroyed the Taisho democracy of the 20s," said the professor with little affectation for that particular era, "and ushered in the Showa era."

"Yes, but no one will lose, really. Financial leverage is transferred from the Americans to our allies as the dollar collapses. Basically, invest in dollars but secretly convert those dollars to gold. But the collapse would have to be gradual. Just enough to fish them out to be in our debt."

Everyone looked at the banker. _America in our debt?_ was the thought that rang in their heads. The thoughts of helping out an old enemy and making demands on them in return for their assistance was too staggering.

"I can't believe it..." said the godfather, face contorted as he tried to absorb the facts. "Defeating America in the money game, bringing her down on her knees. At our mercy..."

"Well, they still have considerable military power," noted the kingmaker, "but without an economy and a political infrastructure strong enough to back them up, it would just be a white elephant. I say we have odds on our side."

The general broke the silence. "How will this play for _us_?" He was still anxious about the role of the SDF in Japan during and after the outbreak.

"General." It was Tatsuru. "In times of these perils, the people will vote for a new constitution, amending the damned Article 9. They can't sit idly by and watch the world crumble slowly, waiting for their turn. Your presence will be essential for those hard times."

"And what of the Americans in our country and neighboring South Korea?" he asked. "I know that they are deployed to check communist power but what happens when the Reds crumble as well?"

"Hmm, we never studied that in depth, sir. They will just recall their forces but if the situation is so bad, we can just send the troops home ourselves and keep their equipment. I'm sure they won't be needing them by then."

The usually stern general smirked a bit at the thought of American soldiers being sent him when their country can't afford to do so. He half-wished it to be the outcome. All that equipment, tanks, aircraft, ships, would be necessary should Japan project her power once again in a bold new world.

"Such a shame though," spoke out the scientist. "We have to remember that America is still a technological giant. It would be a waste to see all of its prowess going down the drain. R&D facilities, technical institutions, places of learning, the cream of their crop will be at risk during a breakdown of the country."

"That's a sobering thought," noted the kingmaker, Kanamori. "A lot of our people attend American schools."

"And a lot of them work in America for their companies," added the banker. "Are they at risk of infection?"

"That depends the timeline of _Nihonto_ , pending the finalization of details," said the general.

"We can provide them with the vaccines on-site, delivered discretely," suggested the aide, "following the breaking of news of the African outbreaks."

"Isn't that contradictory?" asked the scientist. "Wouldn't that give away the operation?"

"The thought occurred to me but I still believe that we must protect our people as much as possible. No sense in letting them go back with a bug."

"I don't think it's really a problem," noted Tatsuru. "If anything, we can leak the idea of the outbreak through them. Small rumors provide a hint, a warning for others to heed. Of course, it would go unheeded by higher authorities, just there for them to look back when it's already too late."

The scientist nodded. "Still doesn't feel right when a lot of development and talent would be threatened by the coming chaos."

"We should find a way," Tatsuru added, "if we can't hire them outright, we can recommend them to another employer but there's no guarantee they'll they follow due to the rising nationalism fostered by Reagan. Anything else?"

"Yes," said the godfather loudly. "We should talk the political ramifications of the outbreak and its aftermath. I assume that we would be a superpower in this."

The professor turned to him. "Yes, we would be a superpower but not in the manner the Soviet Union and the United States conducted, that is concentrating most of that power to themselves. We, Japan, as a small country, would share that new power."

The godfather's eyes went up in surprise. "Share power!? For what reason? Why should share power with other, lesser nations? Superpower status is something that we worked hard for and it's not to be given away like coins to a whore!" He wagged his finger in emphasis.

The others in the room let out a collective mental sigh. The godfather was a good ol' boy politically, narrow-minded and intolerant. International affairs, much less knowledge of other countries, was not his strong point. He almost insulted a Nigerian diplomat in 1981 when he shared a story about a Buraku being beaten to death and comparing it the lynching of America's Deep South. A discrete aide of his stopped him short of uttering a slur out of hand. _Did this bastard_ ever _had an overseas vacation?_ the kingmaker mentally cursed as he went on rambling about the danger's giving away Japan's hard earned power.

* * *

"I'm surprised you had the courage to take the responsibility yourself!" Leia said with defiant sarcasm at Tarkin.

"Princess Leia, before your execution..."

"Is this it?" Satoko asked.

"Yup," answered Rika as their eyes were fixed on the screen

"... No star system will dare oppose the Emperor now."

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

* * *

When he was finished with his lecture about how Japan is more deserving of global power than others and how they should submit to it did the professor talked again, "We are a small country surrounded by seas. If we accumulate power, we make ourselves a bigger target for our enemies and critics. We cannot afford to make the mistakes like back in 1937."

"And what would you have us do?" the godfather challenged. "Allow a potential rival to take that from under our feet?"

"First of all, no. The new world order would be an association of equals, sharing power and its attendant responsibilities. And by the doing so, we share the burden of policing the order and so the risks. It would be built on cooperation, not brinkmanship or domination. We invite others to it. India, China after power is restored back to the Kuomintang, Indonesia, even Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific coastal nations of Latin America would be invited. And of course, Russia and America, or whatever is left that emerged from the ashes of both those two. We do not throw a yoke and order them to wear it, we offer them a hand." Many of the commission nodded in both enthusiastic agreement.

"What a very ambitious mind you have, professor," exclaimed the godfather, careful not to say "delusional". "You must have studied this thoroughly."

"It is. Pax Nipponica. The world led by Japan but not dominating it, working with it, not antagonizing it. It's better than the East-West confrontations and nationalist rivalries that marked the current political climate of the world. We should bring the world to peace, prosperity, progress."

 _Better than power, prestige, and profit, America's usual approach,_ thought Tatsuru. No doubt that the professor's view was influenced by Buddhist eschatology and utopian literature as well as pragmatic consideration. He thought of Maitreya, the final Buddha who would rescue humanity from its sinful morass and preside over a new age of enlightenment. Japan as Maitreya, what a lovely thought. But the country can never be pure, it would not be a benevolent messiah, only an éminence grise. It would have to involve itself in the dirty business of international politics if she want to maintain this new order and he, Tatsuru, would be in the shadowy forefront.

"And what of Europe and the Middle East?" asked the kingmaker.

As they begin a few platitudes about the current situation, they heard what sounded like muffled firecrackers.

"What is that noise?" Then it was followed by a few blasts and screams, muffled by the conference room. The men murmured in apprehension, some of them came out of their seats.

"Everyone, calm down," said the kingmaker. "We should all proceed to the emergency exit. Everyone follow me." But before he can even act, the door bursts open and in flew a guard, heavily bloodied, causing cries of fear from the men, who began to panic.

The guard sprawled on the floor and tried to crawl but a loud, powerful shot to the head finished him off. All eyes turned out to the door. Then came a man toting his gun, his stride stately like some cleric of the Vatican, his boots echoing in the floor. "My apologies, gentlemen, for making such a mess." A snap of his finger and soldiers rushed in after him, forming around his flanks and taking position in graceful speed and precision, weapons aimed at the conference. Most of the commission was up already with their hands up.

"I was not invited to the join the discussion," said the man. "But I do not wish to be entirely left out of the proceedings."

* * *

A/N: Here's Skull Face!


	6. Sins of the Fathers

**Chapter 6: Sins of the Fathers**

A/N: Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Skull Face! Listen to James Horan's awesome voice as you read this story. Be warned, long rambling chapter, almost like I was trying to out-convolute Kojima.

* * *

 _We have come to such a pass that our fate is inescapable._  
-Isoroku Yamamoto

 _Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die._  
— Herbert Hoover

"Tokyo" was caught by surprise as the man and his armed retinue barged in. The men panicked as he shot one of their guards in full view and cold blood. It rose like mercury near the oven as they frantically turned heads around looking for a way out, their voices in chaotic cacophony. An attack against them! Nothing of this sort had happened before. The general simply stood where he was, stunned by the attacked as well as outraged at affront that this armed group presented. The kingmaker tried to keep order but this time, he was ignored as individual fear and self-preservation produce panic among them.

The mystery man raised his weapon and fired into the ceiling and striking a light, bringing the men back to shuddering silence. The kingmaker ordered the frightened ones still shouting to heel, finally bringing the hectic prologue to the takeover to an end.

"Thank you, Kanamori-san for communicating to them the need to be silent," said the man politely.

The kingmaker was stunned by not only the man's politeness but having mentioned his name. "How...?"

The man smiled. "I am in the business of gathering information. Mr. Kanamori. As I understood, you were born in a small village outside Kagoshima. The wealthiest family there adopted you after your father died while retaining his name. Outstanding academic performance, enough to attract the attention of the Imperial Japanese Army as they searched for candidates for officer school among graduates. You accepted the offer. You then became involved politically in many nationalist groups and this continued when you received a post in an infantry regiment and was involved in the February 26 incident. Pardoned and assigned to another regiment in Manchuria. Involved throughout the outbreak of war in 1937 in major battles with all their attendant atrocities. You were never brought to justice at the Tokyo War Crime Tribunals due to the assistance rendered to Allied GHQ against Japanese leftist and intelligence furnished from Korea and Manchuria during their occupation. Joined the Liberal Democratic Party as assemblyman, then party boss. Implicated in the Lockheed scandals but no evidence was supplied to convict you. As party boss, you controlled the purse strings and knows who was who in the country. No prime minister ever achieved office without your help and blessing.

"Quite impressive, Mr. Kanamori. You managed to sidestep a lot of things without losing anything. By the way, all those things are true."

Kanamori's jaw slackened. The man gave a summary of his activities, especially army service and political career. Who was this man!?

He turned to the general. "You were son of a colonel, an aid to a divisional commander who was hung for war crimes. Excellent performance at the Virginia Military Academy and West Point. You've made a number of trips around Asia, to Taiwan, Indonesia, and Thailand, all for the purpose of making a discreet network aimed at containing communism. Because of your efforts, Japan was covertly, heavily involved in Indochina, mainly through intelligence and the heroin trade. Your arrangements with that and Otto Skorzeny's Paladin Group provided training and support to members of right-wing political groups, bolstered by intelligence officers Yakuza, courtesy of the Home Ministry."

The Home Minister's face went pale at that. The figure turned to him. "Home Minister, your office under your predecessor arranged for death row convicts, lifers without parole, and others without any living relations to go to Southeast Asia in order to provide training and experience fighting a counterinsurgency conflict. A lot of men who you deemed expendable died in the jungles and the Yakuza had a decent share in the drug trade. With the silent backing of Park Chung-hee, you aided the kidnapping of President Kim Dae-Jung by the Korean Central Intelligence Agency through Machii Hisayuki, a South Korean national and yakuza boss. You were almost deposed for a string of terrorist incidents by the militant left during the seventies which included the rise of the Japanese Red Army and the Japan Airlines Flight 351, Flight 404, and 472 hijackings, as well as the secret, heavy-handed response against leftists including harassment and in extreme cases, forced disappearance, which are thankfully rare."

He then focused his eyes on the diplomat, who squirmed under his stare. "You were instrumental in normalizing Japanese relations in the business world throughout Asia. You also help Delfo Zorzi, a suspect in the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, with asylum in exchange for the inroads to right-wing European groups. Not to shabby."

The three figures looked at each other and were looked by the others. If he knew much about them in secret, what else did he knew, what other secrets have he uncovered?

He turned to the scientist. "You were a top-scorer in your high-school days, won a prefectural science award and helped designed weather balloons and transosondes, which detect and measure radioactive fallout. They were also used to test the feasibility of delivery of biological weapons based on an earlier attempt by your Imperial Army to weaponize balloons as well as your attempts to use them for signal intelligence post-war." This took the scientist aback.

He looked at the banker. "You were quite the playboy back in your day, cavorting in Tokyo's red light district. When you were deployed in China, every women that caught your fancy, you took for your quarters, sometimes off the streets on your orders. No women was safe from you. The postwar period had not dampened your womanizing one bit. You regularly had dalliances with your secretary. I think it helps you to be competent as you are today." He look at him contemptuously. The banker wanted to speak but a lump his throat formed as he stood up outraged and scandalized.

The figure looked satisfied. "I can go on with everyone with all that I've gathered all about you including personal details but I don't have the time." He turned to the soldiers. "Take the man's body outside and clean up the mess." Two soldiers proceeded to pick up the body of the guard while two more mop the blood had pull. "I'm sorry for killing the man. He was just doing his job but I was forced to put him down.

"But did you have to kill him-" cried the scientist in outrage.

"Isamu, silence!" snapped Kanamori.

"Not more than any of you did when you served your country in the battlefields," the man replied. "His death might have been a mistake, a reflex reaction from old days spent in a different service. He was only doing what he was meant to do and I'm only doing what I had to do, it is regrettable that I had do away with him, an accident of chance so to speak. My apologies again. Let us all be seated. Shocks are better absorbed with the knees bent." On cue, one of the soldiers took a vacant chair for the man and he sat down, relaxed. They slowly, reluctantly complied. He then offered. "If you wish to go to the bathroom, I can have one of my escort you. You just have to say the word. There is no shame to attend to a personal need." No one replied to that.

All throughout this strange encounter left the men puzzled. The leader was dressed in what seemed to be combination of military service uniform and cowboy garb. His soldiers wore gray pilot jumpsuits, helmets that could have been for helicopter pilots which were white with a blue band behind and attached headsets, their eyes shielded by goggles, and their faces were shielded by black balaclavas. They had black vests, amply provisioned for combat, no doubt. Black brassards adorned their upper left arms with patches of their insignia, an oblong with an electric-looking fox set in a yellow background with the word XOF captioned below.

But what was striking was the leader. He wore on his head a fedora like that Colonel Kilgore, a duster like Lee Van Cliff,a Kato mask and carried what looked like a sawed-off rifle. Yet, the most pronounced feature, the one that filled them with dread was his skin. Undulating ripples across his face and neck that seemed like flesh had melted off, leaving a thin veneer of muscles exposed, only instead of vivid red, it was white- pale blue white in the light. Along his mouth were fine lines, remains of a slit that went ear to ear, giving his face a menacing, mocking grin. The mask made his eyes stand out, eyes that bespoke of horror that this hideous figure had seen - and had done.

He then ordered, in polite terms, his retinue to depart. They all walked filed out in an orderly fashion, closing the doors behind them. Now they were alone. He said in a pleasant voice, "So, before we can chat about anything, I would like to catch up with what you esteemed gentlemen have been discussing. I have arrived late, I must admit but I am here now, I do not need to have a detailed account of what was said here, merely a summary of what was on the table."

The men only stared back at him. None volunteering an answer. "Tell me now."

"Why should we tell some hideous hooligan like you?" snapped the godfather, his colleagues looked furtively at him in horror. "You have the audacity to barge in here like some cowboy from a western, whom you dressed exactly like, and now you ask us to tell you what would called 'privileged information?' You are a fool to come here! We will not bow to some American thug who strong arms people who have choose to stand against you and your bloated, war-mongering nation." The looks of horror only increased from his fellows. They all said the same thing: Bakayaro! _Are you trying to get us all killed!?_

The figure had not moved, had not risen to rash provocation of the politician. He sat there, relaxed but intent, like a doctor listening to a delirious patient. "Hmm, I can see your distress, Mr. Ichida. I was once affiliated with the Americans, I used to work with them in the very things you spoke of but I have long since left my old employer and went on my own, long known that everything I've down for them had been to keep some tinpot dictatorship going simply to keep the price of coffee or tropical fruit down and such similar petty things." He sat up erect, as if to draw his rifle mounted on a leg holster. The godfather gasp and recoiled, landing on his back like a donkey. The figure chuckled as they helped the frightened politician up. "In all intents and purposes, my visit here is personal, nothing to do with my former work."

The aide, who had confidence built up in him during the meeting, had felt that evaporate from his body. It was replaced with fear. "H-how did you find us?"

"I was easy actually, I interviewed two very highly place associates," he replied.

Kanamori thought in shock, _Nomura! But how... Why?_

"The first one tried to stall, hoping that help would arrive on time to save her and stop me from finding you but I got her to talk nonetheless. In any case, I've prevented help from coming, even when she called for it. She told me about you and to her second associate, who I say was a very cooperative fellow, he only had to say where you all are and here I am."

"Where is the second one?" Kanamori demanded. "The one who sold us out?"

"He left," was the answer, "taking a long vacation, compensation for services rendered."

While the men had been shock at this betrayal, only the kingmaker took the hint. _He's dead_.

"Now, where was I?" Then affecting a gesture of sudden epiphany, he said, "Ah, I was going to ask you about what went on here but none of you would answer. So, let me ask you this: Why does Japan have a secret weapons program, in violation of Article 9 of the constitution, which clearly states that you have renounced war as an instrument of state policy? I had been busy on my sojourn here. The wealth of information on that one little dirty secret was enormous. As a matter of fact, I believed that you came here because a field test on a small village in the Gifu prefecture failed, the weapon a biological pathogen. The failure was not so much as the actual weapon itself but the resistance presented by the villagers."

Again, no one answered. There was no way to refute what he just said.

"Now, now, I'm not going to judge any of you for that. In this world there is no guarantee that conventional weapons can provide security of one's nation against a determined aggressor, only the threat of retaliation would keep them on hold. Threatening the other with complete annihilation was the basis for the balance of power. But those who cannot mount a credible threat against one's sovereignty are swept away in the petty disputes and the clash of giants among nations. You have every right to have your own umbrella of protection, especially with all the unfortunate things that happened to you in the last war."

The cowboy seemed very reasonable. He expounded his argument well. But what does he want?

"I'm also curious at what my information has yielded. You people actually have a lot of power and connections throughout the Pacific, into Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. Through a subsidiary based in Nassau, you controlled a private force consisting of combatants of many regional conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region, ex-military personnel from from the fallen Indochina republics, Indonesians, Thais, Filipinos, Americans, Australians, New Zealanders, British, Koreans, Chileans, and of course Japanese. My question is that, what do you intend to do with those men?

"Those men are none of your business," replied the general, "nor are they ours. They are a company that we have considered in our concerns for regional security in the light of our increased presence in the Southeast Asian area."

"So you were thinking about hiring them? Clever double speak, general, as it seemed that was formed through with help of some powerful Indonesian friends."

The general answered, "I have no comment. That knowledge came to light here."

The scarred man studied the general. No, he will not bend. Just like himself. "Gentlemen, we can talk all night if we want to but I am a busy man. To your credit, your little clique was hard to find. There was some suspicion of your association two decades ago but it was all mere speculation. Besides, the CIA won't touch you for all the help you gave them back in the old days. Nothing about you turned up in the archives of Lubyanka or any Eastern Bloc intelligence agency, same thing at Tel Aviv and Century House. This is the first time you've been compromised." That word _compromise_ made them shudder almost imperceptibly.

"Now, the heart of the matter. All these schemes you've are only motivated by one thing: revenge. Tell me if I'm wrong."

"You are wrong," said the professor. "In this world, ever since the dropping of Fat Man and Little Boy, the balance of power has shifted to two camps: Communism and capitalism. While it arguably made the world safer, it enabled them to dictate terms to the rest of the world and I see how their brinkmanship has affected it: Vietnam, Cuba, Italy, the Middle East and more. Being able to force their will over others had reduced much of the world into a chess game. It is only the collective economic and political leverage of other nations that this world was not consumed in their horseplay."

"Very true," the man conceded. As professor relaxed, he added, "Or that's what you told yourselves." He stood up. "You fought a war, a war that took on the whole might of most of the world. When the tide turned against you with fleet after fleet, army after army bled and died to protect your territorial gains, they struck hard, sinking your vital merchant marine that sustained your nation, followed by the fire bombings which made suffering unbearable. Rice, fuel, and other necessities were rationed, your factories struggled to produce more with dwindling resources. The casualties kept climbing and so many people without roofs over their heads. And with every Allied victory, your desperation grows day by day, the hardship worsening. Then the bombs came, the first use of nuclear weapons in wartime. The Allies closed in, offered you the terms of surrender and you realized your plight. Everything you worked for has gone to ashes, the people who suffered and died, their sacrifices rendered meaningless. All you see is desolation and devastation. You have no choice to accept. The war ended with you on despair and began the Cold War. I understand it wasn't easy for any of you to have to loss face to an enemy."

The room went silent. While neither party said anything, it seemed that they have come to some understanding.

"We have suffered so much, that much is true," Kanamori said. "You would never imagined it. And the indignity of it all."

"But you held on? Is it education? Morals, faith? Just an imprint of a lifetime of stories? Face to face with oblivion, which is where you are, and you still think that help is coming. The world you were born into is made to save you. Isn't that right? Of course it is. Everyone knows that. Until your last breath, you know it. Without the slightest chance or reason left to them, humans are capable of hope. I'm no different..."

He mounted his right leg on his left, removed his hat and mask with practiced flourish, setting them slowly on the impromptu desk his legs formed. The men gasped and muttered in horror at his appearance. He was horribly disfigured, his face resembled a skull, the nose having seemed mostly melted away, there scars on his face that could have only been made by bladed weapons. On the upper temple seemed to muscle, dried and exposed through patches of the scarred skin. "But for one thing. When my time came calling I didn't die. My family died, my country died, but they didn't take me with them. All Hell took from me was this skin" - he pulled down his sleeve to expose the arm, blanched white with rough unduluations - "this outer peel that marked me 'human.'" He pulled up the sleeve back.

"You... you... we're burned," Kanamori said haltingly, remembering the casualties in an overcrowded hospital from a night's fire raid. There were barely enough bandages to cover the gruesome scars of the victims, which had been blackened by scar tissue and blood. The smell of gangrene, alcohol, unwashed bodies was overpowering. The patients sank in despair as doctors and nurses tended them vainly with what could be had. The screams, sobs, shouted orders added to such pitiful scene.

The figure continued, eyes looking far away., "My village had an oilseed field and a fine factory. Every day my friends and I would see our parents at work in that factory. That's all I had. All the world I knew. Then one day, aircraft came droning in from some far-off sky." Then man's pupil dilated as he recalled the event. "The factory was bombed. Some... ' _spies_ ' had told them we were making weapons." The voice was low, contemptuous. Then they noticed his hands twitch. "The building burned. We tried to flee outside. The crowd blocked the exit. The crowd of people." He breathed deeply as he closed his eyes as he recalled it vividly, long burned into his memory, into his life. "Hot... So _hot_... I tried to push through their legs and get ahead, but a boot in my stomach put me on the ground. The smoke of them burning filled me up. I heard my name called... but not for long."

Relaxing, his voice slowed as he continued to stroll through his memories of that fateful, horrible day. "At the infirmary they carried me to, a nurse in the corner saw me and remarked, as if it happened every day: 'They should let the poor thing die.' Those are the only words of my mother tongue I remember. It was the language of my village. Until foreign troops invaded. Then the last identity I had left - the words I spoke - were pulled from me." Eyes opened and he looked at his arms. "My skin would never feel anything again. This face would be burned again, in torture, at foreign hands, but I, I still writhe in that burning factory. Doused in scalding rapeseed oil." His hands closed into fists, gritting. "That's all I have to feel, that pain - all I have to remind me I exist here." He released his hands as though his anger left, replaced only with melancholy.

The aide felt like he could really see what this man has been through. He had studied period photographs, some of them very graphic, of the effects of the bombing campaign against his country. The ones that struck him the most were nuclear victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The effects of radiation were very pronounced such as horrible burns, scarring, keloids, vomiting. The man facing them had them.

Then the man leaned up and chuckled, as though he recalled a joke. The chuckle made sent a chill down the spines of his audience. "Those 'spies' reported well. We made weapons all right. As cartloads of rifles came in from the battlefields, we fixed them up and sent them back out. So our country could win. Or rather, so that little world we knew could continue. I came to realize I mustn't die. I'm their last hope, all those who perished and left me here. I have to accomplish something. If I don't, their will will be swept out of this world.

"So? You have lost face in defeat. Do you see me now? Tell me." He scanned the men, wanting to see their reaction. "What do you see? Hmm? You have eyes. What do your eyes see?" The men blinked their eyes, wanting to know how will they answer this figure. He chuckled again, at their hesitancy. _They are too polite for their own good_. "Yes, that's right. You see a skull face." He pointed to himself. "You see me. This skull is who I am. My mark, my proof of humanity. I have no country, no language, I have no face, but I haven't lost my _skull_. So I told myself... The pain and effort that keep me alive will never know relief, never bear fruit, never be repaid. I know that, but I told myself to focus on some hope, a nonexistent hope to guide me through this burning world. A hope - call it a dream. A melancholic delusion. As the pressures within me stretch me to bursting, and I force myself not to cry out, though the words I thought were carved into me are gone, and all I knew is dead. I know how you feel. I've felt that."

"So you have proven to me. That I'm not the only one. That you have returned to this world, for revenge." He smiled grimly, as he allowed the men to think.

And they can see it. This scarred man, this stranger, had suffered so much, yet he kept on going, his horrible disfigurement notwithstanding. He had a dark nihilistic determination which pushed him forward, where no other men, certainly lesser men, gave up. He was the ultimate survivor.

The professor admitted, "We have started out with revenge, especially after our country was ground to dust. America set out to create a hegemony, a spiritual successor to the empires of Alexander, Rome, and Britain. In order to contain the challenger for world power, the communists, we have been raised up as a vassal in the front lines. The Americans were generous to us and we were allowed to rebuild ourselves. But that generosity comes at a price. We have lost face, our honor, and we built our country, but only because of America's blessing. No matter our efforts, no matter out success, it could not cleanse the stain of our shame, our recovery as America's lackey."

"I sincerely understood. Which was why you worked hard in this science project, this exercise. You want to regain what you have lost." Then he said slowly, deeply, "Some things can't be undone. My face was taken from me, there's no taking _that_ back."

"But we can take back our honor, our rightful place in the world. You never had any love for the Americans, right?" The professor made a bold offer: "How about you help us?"

The figure, the skull face, was taken aback by the offer. It's hard to tell for any of them what he felt due to his Glasgow smile. "I appreciate the gesture, the offer. You had began with no direction after the war. You charted a path, with only what you can get, you what you can see as the Cold War began. You made hard choices in order to succeed. And here you are now: a prosperous country, yet you never forgotten your purpose - vengeance. A sane person would say, 'You are great now, why must you go pursue something that turns it all back, just for revenge?' I, however, applaud you for your dedication. It can be said that what you did was mourning the loss of an era, of a generation. Or rather, an act of revenge. On the world, but America most of all."

"I think revenge should not be the sole motivator," said Kanamori. "We can build something from this. It's not too late to seek a newer world. Of course, it would be difficult but you can make a difference. It's a much better alternative, a much better choice than the continuation of the power games of East and West. One whose destiny America cannot decide, where we can choose to live."

Skull Face sat up and snapped, "I've never known choice. Where I was born, the language I speak, I've never had the freedom to choose for myself... " He paused and sighed as he collected himself. "You too have known loss, and that loss torments you still. You hope hatred might someday replace the pain, but it never goes away. It makes a man hideous, inside and out. Wouldn't you agree? I am demon. My humanity won't return.

"Now, an old enemy of mine seeks to extend America's reach into the globe. They have recovered sufficient confidence - and experience - to impose their will on the world again."

"Who is this enemy? And you hate America?" the professor asked.

"Hate?" questioned Skull Face incredulously. "He never left me to die. I owe him my life. I'm bound to repay the favor..." His eyes sharpened as he frowned. "Any way I can. But America? I don't hate the country. But its will cannot be allowed to come to spread like a parasite. And I deserve the gratitude of another old acquaintance, a legendary warrior so to speak, but you're not interested in any of that? It's not petty hatred or resentment - nothing so personal. Even the hottest lava eventually cools, becoming a mountain - and that mountain becomes the land. Scalding steam comes back down as rain, forming rivers, draining into the sea. It's then nature's order sets in. Now I'm merely part of that cycle. Just like you."

"Nothing is ever fixed. We both have mutual interests," said the kingmaker. "You can have your vengeance against this enemy you speak of, just for the duration, and we can execute our plan to change the world. We need to come to an accord so we both get something out of this deal."

The man's grin was wider now, they can see mirth in his eyes. Then he chuckled, the chuckled became a guffaw, and it became laughter, true laughter straight from the belly. The laughing filled the conference room, echoing throughout. The men were both puzzled and alarmed at this, looking at each other as though his neighbor knew the desperate answer. He even slapped his knee, rocking back and forth at what he found so humorous to him.

Skull Face got control of himself as he picked his hat and mask up from the floor. "Forgive me, Mr. Kanamori. I didn't mean to be rude. You really are a dealmaker as reputation stated. Always coming to an accord with all involved parties."

He screwed the courage to put on a facade and talk. "Everyone wants something but not anyone can have it. But there is nothing anyone doesn't have to bargain with, no solution that cannot be agreed on."

"I do agree with that," conceded Skull Face. "You learned well from your experiences during the war. I should praise you but... You have proved that you, and my enemy Cipher, and America are all alike."

Some of the men, who relaxed, were alarmed again. The godfather shouted angrily, "By what reason did you compare us to the cowboys who ran amok across the world?"

"Because after you seek _your_ revenge, you will remake the entire world according to you image."

"If that's what it takes," Kanamori responded, "then so be it. The world deserved better than what it has now."

"How noble of you. You claim to be different. How would the rest of the world react to the new order you propose. Will they oppose you? Will they welcome you? And how will you try bring them over to you?"

"We do not ask the world to bow to us. We appeal to their needs and we respect their sovereignty. We do not antagonize them."

"I highly doubt that. If they reject you, just as the immune system of the body rejects foreign material, what then? Are you going to win them over? What if the others who joined decide to oppose you? What then?"

"They would be brought to the fold, eventually," said the diplomat. "We can't force them but we can make them see light."

"Yes, your light," he said in a lowered voice. "You see, you have this notion that the past is such a beautiful place. That the preceding era has some magnificence the present sorely lacks, like the phantom pain from lost limbs. This nostalgia is nothing more than a soft, soothing hand of that pain. Impermanence, I'm so told. We yearn for such happy things, only to accept their passing. Such passing heightens their beauty.

"However, not everyone thinks that way, and that is because the passing of the present was never soothing. My world died when the bombs fell, when I was trampled and burned, and left to die... And was violently brought back to the world of the living. To me that, that is what it is - dead. But you, on the other hand, want to bring back that world. The world, like my own, which you fought so hard to protect its existence, can reincarnate and flourish from the remains of the old. You see, you are no different than America in that respect. What you see was a heaven, was basically a hell for every land you ravage to protect that world, that dream.

"That's not the only thing I detest...," he rubbed his chin, stroking a thought so to speak. "I would like to tell you but it is better I show you." He pressed on his radio. "Send them in." The door opened and two soldiers entered. The men tensed up in alarm.

Skull Face sat up and greeted them, "Good evening, Callaghan, Evans."

The two soldiers saluted him. "Good evening, sir," they said in disjointed unison, in vaguely Celtic accents.

"If you would," he said pleasantly, left arm behind his back and his right hand gracefully gesturing the air along with his words, how about you take off your headwear and introduce yourselves to these found gentlemen, perhaps tell a little about yourselves."

The two men faced the crowd, removed their helmets and ski masks, tucking the former underneath their arms and latter into shoulder straps. The first one, a black-haired man with striking green eyes and a bushy mustache. The second one had brown hair and grey eyes, stubble on his chin.

"Patrick Callaghan, born May 13, 1943, in Celbridge, County Kildare, Republic of Ireland, formerly 3rd Infantry Battalion," said the mustachioed man.

"Thomas Evans, born September, 1, 1945, Colwyn Bay, Wales, United Kingdom, formerly Royal Welch Fusiliers," said the man with stubble.

"Tell me your names again and place of birth, rendered in their original language," he requested, ever polite.

"Pádraic Ceallacháin," answered Callaghan, his voice a little louder, slower, "Contae Chill Dara, Poblacht na hÉireann."

"Twm Ifan," answered Evans, his eyes should flashes of anger, "Bae Colwyn, Cymru, Deyrnas Unedig."

"Original language?" asked the professor. "I thought most of the British Isles speak English."

"Our original mother tongues, sir," replied Patrick. "Mine is Irish Gaelic."

"And mine is Welsh," answered Evans. " Also known as Cymraeg."

"You names in your respective languages have a more lyrical quality," commented Skull Face, as though he heard it for the first time. "Why haven't I heard them before."

"English domination, sir," replied Patrick, his voice tinged with some contempt. "Five hundred years of 'em hammering their language and culture, trying to make us like but teh bastards would never truly accept us them. Fine by me, we never fuckin' like them shoving their shit down our throats. It's the reason why our language survived but the future's bleak. Had to learn my Gaelic in college."

"We weren't fortunate," said Evans. "Wales was brought under the English crown after the failure of Owain Glyndŵr's revolt in 1405. The English disenfranchised our people, no native Welsh son can hold a position in government, can't buy property in English towns, cannot teach the children our ways, we are not allowed to public assembly. We were given representation much later but our language and law was slowly supplanted by theirs, then came the Blue Books of 1847, blamed our language and our Noncomformist church for our poor state of education." He paused as he collected himself.

"I was beaten by teachers in school for speaking Welsh." The voice seethed with venom. "I hated everyone of 'em. Then those English bastards started buying vacation homes in the 70's, raising housing prices beyond the reach of native Welsh. That was the last straw. I was more than happy to see some of those homes burned down." His eyes contained a malicious satisfaction over the burning of those homes.

"For me, English influence lingers too much in Ireland. We still go work across the Irish Sea. We still tune in to British programs in spite of the efforts of our government to promote our culture and language, and we still have that entropy ground into us for five-hundred years. The return of the Troubles in Old Ulster reinvigorated my hatred for England as the Brits sent troops to settle the squabbles of the Catholics and Protestants. What a joke. Brit bastards are helping the Unionist scum in secret, just like they did back in the War of Independence in 1919-1922 and before then."

"Ulster?" asked Kanamori. "Don't you mean Northern Ireland?"

"That is correct, sir. Also known as the Six Counties."

"Why is it that part of your island is still under British control?" asked Finance. "Why are they still holding to it?"

"The Plantation of Ulster," he explained, "when the Crown began moving Protestant settlers from England and Scotland in the 17th century, pushing the Gaelic Catholic population out and had continued long after it. Protestant political manipulations ensured the Catholics left remained disenfranchised and when a referendum was called in after independence, the six counties, with a Protestant majority, voted to stay in. It remains a lasting wound to many Irish, especially to the PIRA. I don't envy the Tommies for having to go there, they're simply forced to clean up a mess five centuries in the making by the crown, the Church of England, and by what's left of the old toffs."

"What does this lecture have to do with anything?" ask the godfather, his voice a pale imitation of his outraged bluster.

"Apparently, you weren't listening closely," Skull Face coolly said. "But you made my point right there." He turned to the two soldiers. "Alright, gentlemen. The presentation is over. You may be excused." He opened the door for them and waved them gracefully out.

"Yes, sir," the replied and crisply went out as Skull Face closed the door behind them.

"You have misunderstood," spoke out Finance. "We are not repeating the mistakes of the past. Armies are not needed anymore." The general spun his head at that, slighted. "We can-"

He raised his hand, halting Finance mid-sentence. "No, you all misunderstood." The voice was cooler. "Mankind cannot live with his neighbor for his neighbor never existed in his eyes, to him he is the 'Other,' someone whose way of life and view of the world is utterly alien. They examined each other like boots, based on their respective views, and often found themselves... wanting. Occasionally, there is common ground but sometimes one or or the other wants to make his neighbor more like himself, sometimes subtly but when that fails, as most inevitably did, violence was the only answer. In short, unless tolerated from a position of strength, one cannot live and let live unless his neighbor is broken down, consumed, formed into his own image.

"You've done that too. Among the Ainu of Hokkaido, Ryukyu Islands, and then Taiwan and Korea, just like so many before you, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, the Spanish, the French, and the British . You forged an empire out of many disparate peoples and there's only one tool, one to control them, and make them your own. A parasite."

This caused his audience a great deal of confusion. Had he have known of the Hinamizawa parasite research before? Was there parasite research conducted before and parallel to theirs? How much do the Americans know of it? This and other questions plagued their minds.

"And that parasite is language."

The confusion and apprehension were replaced with bewilderment. They all looked at him. "Language?" asked a surprised Kanamori. "Preposterous!"

"Language is a parasite but one mankind cannot do without. It is what separates him from mere beasts. It is what allowed him to transmit information. It is what allowed him forge identities, social constructs necessary for the survival of the species and language, as an intellectual organism, needs a host to survive as well. Words keep us alive, they help us see and hear the world.

"A ruler's greatest wealth is not the territory he acquired or the wealth he rendered from it but his people. And to control the people, he needed a code, a common tongue, language. Yet, languages outlive the empires that use them. They simply cannot die until confronted with a more powerful, virulent strain. Language, is a powerful tool for subjugation, uniting different peoples under one banner, one yoke, infecting them. In classical times, Greek and Persian were once spoken widely, only to be supplanted by Latin. Such was the power of that language to many that the Visigoths who ruled Spain and Portugal did not destroy it and forced their own tongue on the inhabitants. Latin even infected the barbarians."

"You make a very splendid argument but how is language an infection?" asked the professor. "To a people, it's as natural as breathing but it cannot spread like that unless it is taught."

"My, my, very perceptive of you, professor," conceded Skull Face. "You are right. Language cannot spread without its host transmitting it. Did it occurred to you that you taught Japanese in your holdings?"

The professor was taken aback by this cleverness. "Yes... that is correct..."

"Language gives a race or ethnicity strength. It provides them a social link to a 'hive mind' to coordinate their efforts. Subjugating others with a language is simplicity itself as it allows you to displace their ethos, their thinking, their identity and culture, and replace them with yours. The concept of anything is changed because of the new language used distorts them. A philosopher once said, 'It is no nation we inhabit, but a no mistake, our native tongue is our true fatherland.' He is right, more than a piece of earth and water, language is the fatherland of a people.

"And with language one can shape their world in their own image."

"And how?" asked the scientist. "We cannot make French or Vietnamese people speak our language. If Japanese is the lingua franca of the future, it doesn't displace other languages of the world, however the British tried before that and most of Latin America still speak Spanish in spite of the United States' influence."

"Both Spanish and English thrived in the Western Hemisphere as both are strong, used to consolidate the power of its hosts, displacing indigenous tongues, and controlling the populace with information. That was the thing that inspired my enemy. America is a country of liberty. A meeting of immigrants. Instead of simply assimilating, its citizens live along side others. Their roots are varied. Diverse. America's never been made up of just one people. But he tried to forge a single consciousness. For it, and from it. The idea that every citizen would use free will to unite behind their country... Unilateralism like that can't be entrusted to any one individual. So the major sought a system which used information, words, to control the 'subconscious.'"

"I would like to speak up," said the aide suddenly. His colleagues looked at him at this sudden spurt of openness that in their culture, would be construed as rude.

"Of course, you may," said Skull Face graciously, not feeling offended as they feared.

"You're talking about information, are you?" he asked.

"That is right."

He stood up and explained, "Look, we are aware about the emerging information technology being developed all over the world. There are talk of creating a digital network that would span the globe, a highway of data that would replace the telegraph, the phone, and the teletype by the end of the twentieth century. There is talk of scientists around the world of creating a common language for machines so that they would be compatible with each other and transmit information faster. Are you hinting that Americans are creating something like that, so they can control the world?"

Skull Face smiled with satisfaction. This young man was catching on better than the rest of this bunch. "You are right. There is such a thing. And it is being tested right now as we speak. But that thing would never be in the hands of the White House, Langley, or the Pentagon. They belong to Zero."

"Zero?" they asked.

"My old enemy. To create world he believed his old friend envisioned. To him, people need an appropriate context for their lives. A context that is stimulating without being destructive. Information control. But I think he never understood what she wanted."

The men looked at each other as they digested what the the burned devil had said. This man was determined to go with whatever his lunacy dictated to him. But the threat of America using a centralized electronic highway to control information was not lost to them. If this enemy of his succeeds, they lose what must possibly their only window of opportunity. They hoped whatever he was saying was a metaphor. It's impossible to chain the English language, or any language for that matter, right?

"Please listen us," said the scientist. "If that is what you're afraid of, if that's what you're fighting against, we have a more constructive way of changing the world. Maybe you have such a plan yourself." It was a last-ditch effort to bring reason to this madman, to make this visit worth his while. "We only want to help this world, not exploit it."

He sighed and shook his head. "You never knew what it's like for you never recognized the pain of losing your own tongue, like my enemy, my old friend." He blinked his eyes and breathed deeply. "I was still a child when we were raided by soldiers. Foreign soldiers. Torn from my elders, I was made to speak their language. With each new post, my masters changed, along with the words they made me speak. Words are... peculiar. With each change, I changed too. My thoughts, personality, how I saw right and wrong... War changed me - and not only my visage.

"Words can kill. I was invaded by words, burrowing and breeding inside me. My fatherland - my truth was stolen from me. And so was my past. All that's left is the future.

"And the future will not be decided by the sins of the fathers any longer."

* * *

A/N: Find out what happens next. How was James Horan explaining my expanded exposition of the implications of Skull Face's plan? Find the Persona game series reference in the final part of this chapter.


	7. War Is Peace

**Chapter 7: War is Peace**

A/N: Now we see how Skull Face handles "Tokyo."

* * *

 _Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons._  
— General Douglas MacArthur

 _War is fear cloaked in courage._  
— General William C. Westmoreland

"My friend believed that he could achieve equilibrium suppressing information you find undesirable. To him, race, national borders, even our own faces are irrelevant. By controlling the codes, Cipher... Zero intends to unify the world. Codes implanted into our heads, sucking our minds dry as it spreads from one host to the next. A face means nothing when souls are able to communicate directly with one another."

"But I don't agree. I have no intention of hiding behind that technological veil. I wear my broken visage - this skull, in the open, so that I may never forget what I've lost..."

"I think I find your plan pointless, if I may so bluntly speak," said the general. "What possible outcome can you achieve by going after this 'enemy' of yours?"

"True freedom. A parasite upon the earth, that is what Zero is. As one born into this world, he's afflicted-" He waved his hand, as though angrily sweeping chess pieces, and put his arm upright and closed his fist in anger - "I hold him responsible for killing my freedom. Killing all traces of my past... Killing any promise of a future... We are all but dead men forced to walk upon this earth. A world reduced to Zero. Cipher plans to use its codes to control the world. They think they can."

"Codes? Freedom? What are you saying?"

"You think you can too. No doubt that after your own gamble succeeds, the first step in remaking your world is erasing all information of your parasite attacks, tying of loose ends. And to secure it literacy must be suppressed. Reshaping it. With your position secure, you would quietly bend it to your will, with power unimaginable to your predecessors. _Anyone_ who speaks out against you will be suppressed because they have long lost their voice, defined and muted by the context you _instituted_. No cry of help, no cry of protest, nothing will ever be heard as you _squelched_ the life out their beings, as you undermined them with your redefinition of everything they know.

"You can finally avenge the lose of face that you had in 1945 while your enemies and victims lose theirs."

"No one is to _lose_ face," protested the general. "Not by much. No one has to know in the future."

"Yes, like how your school children are not supposed to know your country's rather sordid record."

"Is that what's all _about_?" the professor asked, outraged. "I don't believe in letting our children dwell in the past when the present and future are more practical concerns."

"So is national honor," he observed wryly. "The people, you subjugate, raped, and tortured are faceless and without honor: is that what your implying?"

"No, it is not!" cried the professor in rage. "Unless you can give me specific examples, then your argument is baseless!" _The skull man was already overstaying his welcome_ , he thought. His gatecrashing into their meeting offended his sense of propriety and now he was judging them based on Western hearsay accepted as gospel about the Great Asian War? It was just too much for him.

"So many to choose from," he said plainly. "Donghak Peasants' Revolution, where Korean peasants are hung like dogs and your textbooks refer to it as mob violence rather than a people defending their identity from being consumed; Chichibu incident, where the participants are dismissed as hooligans and to this day they renamed nameless, not like your heroes at Yasukuni Shrine. The Rape of Nanking and the Bataan Death March." The professor glared hard at him.

He finally added, "And Unit 371, the men who made your parasite research possible."

The professor's face turned crimson, as though he had been presented with a trick by schoolboy. "You mean that? All of that is the historiography of our country as written by the West! Hog wash! Besides why should we wash our dirty laundry in public, the West does that, and for that same reason they engage in tabloid journalism! History is written by the victors and we refused to let them write our history to suit their preferences!"

"And why do they write about your atrocities in their books," he pointed out calmly, "are the millions of victims and veterans lying?"

"They can believe what they want to!" he screeched back. "And those ingrates in Asia should be happy we are pouring money into their economies? Are they not happy that we compensated for the damages? We all have unpleasant memories, for God's sake but what is there to rant about."

"Is that what you called it? The victims want money for their pain? I know some who would be insulted if you think you can buy that away."

"Oh please, what for!? Ingrates! Can't they see reason? We have given them nothing but respect! The war in Asia was for their benefit, so they can throw off their shackles of the West and Communists. And most of all, they want change."

"Reason? Respect?" he questioned oddly. "And how was the last war supposed to benefit the rest of Asia, by replacing one yoke with another, only the yoke will break their identities, their souls twisted at your whim? If lying is the measure of 'respect' you have for them and 'reason' for their benefit is to forget the pain inflicted upon them, then they would have been easy if they have a servile mentality but servile mentality is maintained by never allowing an outlet for anger and vengeance, there is nothing to _change_ that fact."

"What could they do about it?" he asked pointedly. "Those workers at Detroit can rant all they want, for example. They are just lowly servitors who know very little outside of their narrow lives. Being told by their bosses to oppose us if they want to keep their jobs when they can have a better deal with us."

"Assuming they can look past you and the unpleasant memories you trigger," he observed. "What future would _they_ have under your world?"

"What we leave to them," he said acidly. "They can take it or leave it like the animals they are."

"Americans have a capacity for resilience under chaos - and revenge."

"What possible harm can they cause? They brought it unto themselves, Vietnam, Iran, Latin America. Half the world hates them now."

"How do you make the world not turn that hate against _you_?"

"How can we be hated if we don't make ourselves a big target like the Americans do? We will not be in the sights of our enemies. We will all share the burden of shaping this world. You said it yourself, unilateralism cannot be entrusted to one group or one faction."

"So, multilateralism is the solution? If so what is the nature of your 'multilateralism?' I don't supposed it is a repetition of Western hegemony?"

"Only America does that!" he snapped back. "So as Russia, and maybe China if she is allowed to grow strong. Our new world order is a partnership among nations, among equals."

"Really? You prop up others while your country remains the power behind the throne?"

"We lead, yes, but we don't order, we don't pressure, we can only invite."

"And will they so blindly accept your invitation, without developing any 'allergies?'"

"Allergies? You talk as if we are a disease, you racist bastard! The only allergic reaction here is the the one I have for you. Coming in like a brigand, accusing us of pursuing our plans and ambitions in less than honorable means, with rambling speeches and sophistry. They certainly are not honorable but they are what needs to be done!"

"Ah, repeating the company line, I see? The war you started was to help your fellow Asian brethren, is that it? Never mind the consequences of your actions."

"Why are we turning back to the past? Those actions are regrettable but they are less important in the grand scheme of things! That they will understand once they can see things our way, especially the those Korean and Chinese monkeys."

"Really? Have you seen things their way?"

"Is it ever needed? Of course we have, and it's misguided, incomplete. The war forced on us by manipulations of the Western powers in their political games and their own haughty and narrow understanding of the world. We championed Asia. And just to show you we are not like hard-hearted, detached men like their Bilderbergs and Rothschilds, all of us have suffered greatly and we will not idly stand by and watch the world gets swirled away by these power games. The world deserves order, dead man. Even more than it realized. It cannot be allowed to tear itself any longer."

"And if you were able to get them to see reason your way, make them see things in a different perspective, how do you explain away the pain...? The phantom pain. Humans can remember pain as a basic survival instinct. They can remember how it was inflicted and the cause. When the pain is caused by an enemy in combat, they remember the cause as a threat."

"Pain, pain, all this talk of pain has made me sick. Why are we given graphic images of the casualties of the Pacific War by so many people, by the our leftists, by those veterans and by those nations we have fought on as battlefields? Aren't they satisfied with the amends we've made? Don't take us for hardhearted men. We have lived through the worst times of our country's history. People who never were there do not appreciate what has come to past. The chaos, the corruption, the despair. Yet, they still question us, denouncing us in the streets, in the classrooms, everywhere. Screaming our sins at our faces like it's supposed to change anything. WE have done everything for this country, this peace and prosperity, and they should be grateful for that. Instead, they scream like little children who pricked their fingers -"

"Please, sensei," whispered Finance uneasily. "I think you need to step it down-"

"I will not be silenced!" he continued on. "They have never known disorder and are now sowing it everywhere. They never _knew_ pain, like what you said. So why bother? Like those victims of the fire bombings, Hiroshima and Nagaski, they writhed and cried out for relief. And they still remembered it. For that matter, why shouldn't they die. Every time I think of them, they are a reminder of our own loss, of the loss of our face and the breakdown of order that followed, parasites that break down our people's vitality. Why can't we just throw them to the sea for them to die? The world would be better off without them!" He pointed angrily at him. "And you, you presumptuous walking corpse, why won't you can't you have some plastic surgery to fix that _face_ of yours!?" The voice of retort echoed throughout the room.

Then silence fell as the professor breathed in to calm himself. Skull Face kept his peace, however he wanted strike at him. The now horrified men darted eyes between the professor, Skull Face, and each other, whispering their worried whispers. It was only the silence that followed that the academician realized what he had just said and what it bode for him in relation to the skull-faced man. Looking at the stunned faces of his colleagues, his arm slackened as he looked at Skull Face, his mouth hung open in embarrassment.

Tatsuru wanted to laugh as the pompous intellectual looked like he had just been caught fucking a prostitute by one of his students in the faculty room. But laughter was not called for. He would expose his own position to everyone, that is he really took no side. Also, laughing at someone else's misfortune was impolite. All he had was a thin smile, something they can't see as everyone else was too engrossed with the situation. The outcome would certainly be interesting.

Skull Face simply sat still, leaving them to their worries until they sorted themselves out. By then, they went silent as the pseudo-military cowboy had not moved a muscle and watched them. "You know, professor," he finally said. "Thank you for articulating both you and your country's attitude to the outside world, your visions of the future, your motivations and so forth."

The professor had only knew how easily he was at the mercy of the disfigured cowboy. "P-p-please s-sir," he stuttered, raising his arms as though appealing to him to calm down. "I d-did not mean what I-I offen-"

"Apology not needed," he replied coldly. "You talk of order, of change, and peace. I have seen the character of your 'face' and the ideal of 'order' you wished to restore. The victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are shunned by the greater public, and they feel nothing but shame for their condition, though no fault of their own except as accessories to a regime that tried to fight for breath in the dying days in World War II. A regime whose parasitic legacy is embodied in you people. Shunted into corners so the world cannot see them, the victims are but tangible symbols of the pain you once felt. The scarred are only worthy of pity, but never respect as no one appreciates their pain, only the pain brought by it."

"You are wrong about our treatment of the victims," said the scientist. "They have our greatest sympathy and we look after their needs."

"But you never remedied the pain inside their souls," he pointed out. "You alienated them, scorned without words. They know it and accepted it without complaint. They can never be put back together again and their presence only offends your notions of order."

"Maybe that's where your wrong," pointed out the Home Minister. "Have you ever stepped outside your viewpoint? You judged us here for our methods and our history but it was judged in your _context_."

"My view is just, one of the many," he conceded. "That much I know. But my view was broader, deeper, forged from the fires of war and tempered in the shadows. Your way of seeing reality has stagnated in the intervening years which no amount of update can cure.

"Your country and its people at times feels like it wears a mask to hide the truth and that mask not only hides but also distorts the senses of the beholder, leaving him unable to comprehend what his senses tell him. You altogether have developed an immunity to information, anything you deemed unfavorable. When a piece of information contradicts and refuses to fit in with the bigger picture, the grand scheme, it is isolate and eventually consumed, never to threaten the rest of the body. You strive to keep this intellectual immune system strong and for that, nothing is allowed to change it. This has influenced your dealings with others, you cannot deal will with them as you you have no way to refute what they believed in. Such is an affront to your order, your peace. Even now, your minds are analyzing everything I say and decipher what I mean based on your context."

"And what of it? It can't be helped," said the Home Minister. "Our views are our views alone. If people can't abide by it, then that's their problem." Then it hit him. "That's the problem, isn't it? We always fail to understand each other."

Skull Face smiled, satisfied. "It is indeed true. Mankind has always failed to reach an understanding with his fellows. This lack of comprehension often lead to conflict."

"And it still plagues us," finished the Home Minister. "Such is an enduring truth in the world. For that reason, dialogue and consensus are necessary to bind us."

"Indeed, but is true only to a certain point. Consensus becomes dogma once it is introduced to a larger populace."

"And that is because they agreed. And they agreed because it makes sense."

"They agreed because _you_ make it seem to make sense to them. The building block of language is words and words are memetic bits of information that can be bent and twisted at the will of the speaker. In the West, the word made flesh and dwelt among us but in the east the man of flesh brings spiritual power to words. You bound the public through your will, letting the words of your consensus to breed in their minds, effectively robbing them of their freedom. You have a saying that said that the nail that sticks out will be hammered down."

"Yes, that is true," said the kingmaker. "Anyone who rocks the boat may threaten to sink it."

"And may I add that when the hammer falls, it falls down hard. You've dealt with dissent in various means with the ultimate aim of destroying it, like the antibodies that surrounded foreign organisms.

"And since you built your society on control and conformity, the outside world was something to be subjugated, never to be tolerated for you fear it will consume you. In order for your little world, your cocoon, to survive, it must destroy and consume the other neighboring little worlds, enlarging that world of yours. Its people are to be broken in order to rid their ways and accept yours. Like all empires, you leave your words, your parasites of thought, permanently altering the identities of their hosts. Entropy permeates the subject peoples as language is forced into their mouths, eating them from the inside. Making them carbon copies of yourselves.

"The order you strive for, the peace you want to bring into this world is an arrogant mockery, an affront to the natural order. You created an artificial environment, where nothing that mars your context, your truth, is allowed to exist. There are no war crimes, no radiological victims, no dissidents in it. The scars of the past, the scars you inflicted will never appear in your new 'face.'

"Now you understand why I wear this skull, gentlemen." He touched his cheek in emphasis. "I have nothing to hide to this world." The room became silent as he watched the men ponder thoughtfully at his lecture.

"If that is true, why are you hiding in the shadows?" asked Tatsuru.

"The same reason you did - To hide from prying eyes, to nurse my pain, and then to unleash my wrath on this world."

"What sort of plan do you have to unleash on this world? Wouldn't something constructive be better?"

"I'm not trying to end it, if that's what you mean." He stood up and opened his arms as though to a congregation, hat in hand. "Let the world be. All men will breathe free again - reclaim their past, present, and future. Sans lingua franca, the world will be torn asunder. And then, it shall be free. People will suffer, of course - a phantom pain. The world will need a new common tongue. No words will be needed. Every man will be forced to recognize his neighbor. People will swallow their pain. They will link lost hands. And the world will become one."

"And what does that mean?" asked the kingmaker.

"War is peace."

His answer had caused the men to murmur again worriedly again. "You intend to star a war?" asked the scientist, horrified.

"No... I intend to end one - and usher in a new era." Skull Face was about to turn around when he faced Tatsuru and asked another question. "But I know face or order alone is not what drives you to great lengths to this parasite project of yours, is it?"

"My apologies, sir, but I'm afraid that I can't answer that," Tatsuru replied honestly.

"I believe you," he answered.

"Maybe, you're right," said the kingmaker. "Perhaps we were carried away by revenge."

"You're not agreeing to this maniac, are you?" whispered Finance.

"Mr. Kanamori, revenge is as natural as breathing. Like the autoimmune diseases that afflict the body robbed of its parasites, a man robbed of his enemy develops self-destructive tendencies. Men want to feel righteous, need to see the evil in the enemy they fear. Without it, they will turn their aggression inwards, find an enemy inside..."

"We might have been obsessed in making the United States pay for the humiliation of the Pacific War. All the sacrifice that we have made have been for nothing. And when the peace followed, the postwar world had changed, depriving us of any way to redeem our honor. It's probably why we have never fully considered other alternatives. Such a petty reason to go by in hindsight."

"Don't stop now," he urged. "You've worked so hard for this."

"Why should we?" he challenged. "What about you? Why don't you forgo this mad scheme of your as well?"

"Because that lava - the vengeance - is already set in stone. Too late to change things now. The choice was not mine to make. You even have an expression for that which translates to 'it cannot be helped.' That is true. We're just motes in the storm. How you react to the slings and arrows, that's what counts."

Skull Face reached into his coat and took out a parcel. "I have something to give you, Mr. Kanamori." He held it out.

Looking around, Kanamori slowly walked to the figure and accepted it "It's a little something from the last war. A gift if you will." He then tipped his hat to his audience. "Farewell. It has been lovely chatting." He went outside and closed the door behind him.

The atmosphere of the room was slowly changing, relief that the mysterious figure has finally left, a demon has departed. What was replaced however was bewilderment and alarm.

"Thank goodness he's gone," said the godfather, who finally relaxed.

"Gone, yes," agreed the banker. "But so are our hopes."

"Why?"

"Haven't you heard him? We are compromised! Our plans are compromised, what else are we going to do?"

"We don't know yet," said the Home Minister. "We need to contact our network in the country and outside world..."

While everyone debated on how best to perform damage control, Kanamori looked at the brown-paper wrapped parcel, a flat rectangular box of some sort. It had a note that said, "Let the world be."

"It could be a bomb, sir," warned Koizumi's aide.

"It might be," seconded Tatsuru.

"If it's a bomb, I would be dead right now," Kanamori replied.

"At the very least, it needs to be handled carefully by the appropriate personnel," the intelligence chief suggested.

"All the appropriate personnel are dead," he snapped back, referring to the guards. He tore of the paper covering.

"Kanamori-san!" cried the horrified aide. "Don't-" This drew the attention of the commission.

The crumpled paper fell and it revealed a black lacquer medal case. He gasped as he read the gold embossed kanji and he opened it with shaky hands. His eyes went wide.

It was an Order of the Golden Eagle, Imperial Japan's highest military award. It lay nestled in its purple velvet cushion. This was a third class medal, one of the seven classes awarded to Japanese fighting men, with the seventh to fifth classes awarded to enlisted men; sixth and fourth to non-commissioned officers, and fifth and third; fourth and second to field-grade officers and finally first and third to general officers.

He picked it up, hands trembling now, as he took the medal in his hands. He looked at it and ran his hands as though trying see if this was real.

"Is it...?" the general asked.

"It can't be," whispered the banker.

But it is, it was unmistakable. The golden kite, the messenger of the kami sent to aid Emperor Jimmu, was there, perched on top of a sheathed halberd of enameled green with white trappings set within an eight-pointed star with thirty-two rays covered in red enamel, which symbolized its dazzling plumage which blinded the enemy turned the tide in the emperor's favor, establishing his 2,600-year lineage. Two enameled blue shields used before and during the early stages of the samurai era, crossed together, and two crossed katanas with silver hilts were also crossed together, forming a saltire, both of them bearing red banners with the mitsudomoe heraldic symbol in the center. The reverse side was, plain gilted but it had four rivets. These four rivets, he knew, were of prewar manufacture. The ribbon, green with white stripes, which was used for it to be hung around the neck was dirty and faded. The medal itself had a dull sheen and the reverse side had hints of rust and discoloration.

But no doubt to him that it was real. And he remember only person in his life who had that, a dear friend of his who was awarded posthumously after leading a charge that overwhelmed Koumintang troops holding a choke point in Northern China.

He breathed deeply, closed his eyes, and clasped the medal in his hands as old memories flooded his mind of his service in such a glorious cause in their country's darkest hour. He grasped so hard the edges actually broke skin on his palm and fingers, drawing a little blood, but he didn't care at all. It was real, the pain was real.

He slowly released as the emotional tide ebbed and he was brought back to reality.

"Order of the Golden Kite," noted Tatsuru. "I never thought I'd see one."

"Nor would I, at least to see it again." He released the medal and reverently put it back inside, wiping the tiny amounts of blood on his sleeve. "Only the Emperor awards this to the bravest of his warriors from the first Sino-Japanese War to the Great Asian War. More than a million of these are made, more than eight-hundred thousand in the Great Asian War alone."

"Such a small but significant piece of our history. Shame this wasn't displayed more often."

Kanamori nodded in agreement. "It is such a shame. Ever since our defeat, things like this are outlawed by the government to placate the Allies. I always feared this and many small things, representatives bygone eras of our history, would end up in the curio shops and desk drawers in America and Britain as they are looted from our dead or pawned away."

"Why would our mysterious guest give it this to you?" he asked.

" I don't know... some twisted statement, I can't even begin to fathom what he intends to accomplish with this." He turned back to his serious, business-as-usual self. "No matter, we need to do something about this mess."

"Well, we can try the radio room. We have a contact here who could help us, a former Vichy French official who had done a successful import-export business and a sympathizer who lobbied for our entrance into the French economy."

"Understood," Tatsuru said without delay.

"General," he called out.

"Sir," he said promptly.

"Go outside and see if the yacht and the crew are alright. We need to know if our-" He started coughing violently and bent over, holding his chest. The lacquer box fell to the floor and the medal popped out and bounced.

"Kanamori-san, what's wrong..."

The coughing was so sudden and heavy, it almost felt like he was about to spit blood. Then he grunted in pain as his lungs seemed to be squeezed by some invisible hand burrowing into the tissue. He dropped on his back as he continued to cry choked, guttural growls. His head tilted to one side to see the note on the parcel, only in the reverse with another inscription.

"The chain of retaliation is what will truly bind this world together as one."

He suddenly understood why he gave him the medal. He was poisoned. And he will poison mankind. He found himself lifted as his lungs struggled mightily to bring in air.

"What should we do!?" one of them asked in alarm.

"We need to get him some medical attention quickly!"

As the flurry of shouts filled the room, a huge rocky outcropping suddenly shot up from the floor, impaling the newspaper magnate from back through chest.

"What the hell was that!?" And it was answered when a rock crashed through the ceiling, it narrowly missed the banker by a few inches, who stumbled on his back and tried to back away. Then a strange mist filled the run and now the panic was fever pitch, as everyone looked around the thick mist. The aide cringed in horror as everything around him turned south in mere seconds.

"What the hell is going on!?" shrieked Finance.

"I don't want to die!" the godfather howled in terror. The ceiling was being torn apart as debris rained on them, the hacking of what seemed to be blades giving the horror its music.

"A skull! I see a skull!"

The general's hand instinctively went for his hip for a gun that wasn't there and cursed himself for his reaction to this predicament. The next thing he saw was a head of the finance minister on his feet, facing back at him with a fear-stricken face.

His own face contorted in horror as a pair of glowing green eyes lit up behind him. Then he heard some inhuman grunting but before he could turn he was lifted up in the air with a scream like a lamb caught by a condor.

"General!" Then blood and body parts rained on the banker and then a quarter of the military man's head hit the top of his, alerting him as a blade separated his trunk and torso.

"Oh no! Tetsou!" screamed the Home Minister as tried to run for his life.

"Don't! They'll kill you-" But another "Tokyo" member was cut short at the horror that confronted him: a big bulky figure wearing futuristic black armor, it was bald with sickly, rotten-looking skin with a number tattooed on his forehead and wore a respirator mask, and those green-eyes glared as it held a huge black blade on its hands. This cannot be human at all!

"ONI!" Those were his last words as it disappeared, then pop up above him, bringing the blade down, bifurcating him in a deadly grace.

By then, they were screaming for their lives as they bolted for anything to keep them safe like stampeding cattle. Sonic booms exploded as figures darted after their prey.

The aide and Kanamori were left behind as the former tried to take the latter to hide. He took him to a broom closet and laid him down. The pupils were milky white now and he ripped his suit to reveal ugly-looking cysts on his boss's chest.

"Oh my God," he wailed in despair, "What am I supposed to do?"

"Live..." he called out.

"What?" He face him.

"Liveeeeeaaaarrrggh!" The pain was attacking him again. The gurgling noise frightened him enough to get off his feet and run, putting an end to his futile effort of mercy.

All the way, he can hear screaming as he ran through the mist, knowing that that he would be next. Still, he kept running and running, coming out into the open, seeing vaguely through the mist Polynesian flora which had frost from the cold, until he tripped and fell on his face. Scrambling up in all fours, he felt something wet drip on the back of his head. He looked up to see Tatsuru Miyamoto suspended by a black pole protruding through his chest.

He let out a low moan of fear as he his eyes were fixed on the intelligence chief, skewered like a piece of meat. He was on his backside rearing away from the macabre sight before him. All around him he can hear the screams of "Tokyo" men being butchered and the inhuman sounds made by their assailants. He can see specters streaking and black clouds of dust materializing and decomposing these "shadow fiends."

His life started flashing before his eyes such as his school days, his summer vacations, his graduation from college and his entrance into government service as part of the Health Ministry. It made him realize how stupid he must have been for throwing his fate with "Tokyo," cursing himself for his choice now that it lead to this nightmare. Time had slowed to a snail's pace as he looked around as the nightmare began to morph into surrealistic proportions. He did not hear himself scream.

* * *

"WHHOOOOHHHHOOOO!" the Game Club screamed in joyous uproar as the Death Star exploded in the screen.

"Way to go, Luke!" Keiichi shouted himself hoarse.

"Yeah! Yeah!" Satoko jumped up and down. "That's for Alderaan, creeps!"

"Haha! Top that, Vader!" Mion taunted.

"Oh no! R2-D2!" wailed Rena as the astromech getting hit was too much for her. Tears were comically river'ing down her wide huge eyes now.

The movie has hit its climax and was drawing to a close. Rika had never scene anyone so pumped with joy in her entire life, not for the millions of cycles she underwent to avert their fates.

Yet, she looked at Shion, who was looking longingly at the screen.

"Rika," said Hanyuu. "Shion looks sad. It must be because of Satoshi."

Yes, Satoshi is still undergoing treatment, thought the miko. She had little reason to enjoy the climax as her boyfriend wasn't hear with her. No, she saw her enjoy the movie but the climax has no doubt brought back her sadness.

Rika approached Shion and touch her shoulder. This surprise the somewhat more feminine Sonozaki twin. "Are you alright?"

"Well... Not exactly," was the answer. "It's just..."

"Satoshi," Rika answered for her. "He's alright. He'll make it."

"I wish it was true," she replied sadly.

"He's tougher than he looks," she suggested. "And he'll do it just for a very special girl."

Shion looked at her. "You think so?"

"Definitely. He'd want you to smile and maybe you watch Star Wars together with him."

Shion smiled at that as everyone else was still feeling the hype from the credits.

* * *

A/N: Not really the end though. Maybe the end of "Tokyo" but war rages on. It will never be game over.

If you're asking, it was the vocal cord parasites.


	8. Epilogue: Never Be Game Over

**Epilogue: Never Be Game Over**

A/N: Here's a presentation from the guys who sold the world to a bunch of computers with disastrous results.

* * *

 _Everyone has a right to pursue a happy life._  
 _The difficult part is to be given that right._

 _Everyone has a right to pursue a happy life._  
 _The difficult part is to fulfill that right._

 _I too have a right to pursue a happy life._  
 _The difficult part is to work out a compromise for that right._

 _— Frederica Bernkastel_

 _The next day..._

After watching the climatic end of Return of the Jedi, it got the Games Club into a lively discussion before going to sleep late shortly after one o'clock. At the moment, Rika had a bad dream.

She dreamed of a hospital on fire with soldiers shooting patients and staff, of a boy with redhead wearing a gas mask floating through the walls and ceiling. A man on fire burst flames from his body while a patient struggled to crawl forward, assisted by another one, bandaged and wearing a green hospital gown. They had escaped harrowing encounters with a burning whale, the redheaded boy, and the murderous soldiers. It was so vivid, so jarring, so intense that the shrine maiden woke up with a start and a cold sweat.

In shock she woke up her friends and after a brief half-explanation got on their bikes to the hospital where Satoshi was interned, speeding their way through the three o'clock darkness where no traffic was in sight. They arrived at the town hospital where after hastily signing their names on the visitors' registry, where lead by the duty nurse to his room, guarded by Mamuro Akasaka.

"What's all the rush?" he asked concerned as the gang ran for him.

"Satoshi? Is he alright?" cried Shion.

At this urgency, he quickly lead them in to see Satoshi sleeping peacefully with an oxygen mask on his face and a saline drip on his arms. In the couch slept another plainclothes detective.

Shion ran and hug Satoshi, crying, knowing at least he was safe.

"Huh- what's going?" the cop asked, drowsily.

"Nothing, just a worried girlfriend," said Akasaka.

"Shion, we should try to move him," suggested Rika.

"Where?" she asked as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Someplace safe."

It was too early to followed on that suggestion but everyone agreed that such a measure would be discussed today. Akasaka had called for backup, putting the hospital on double guard for the next few days until Satoshi can be transferred to a new location. Rika wondered if she had acted rashly but remembering the dreams, she was no taking chances. Somewhere around the world it would happen. She wondered if she traded the previous world for this.

What was it all for?

* * *

 _Please do not deplore yourself._  
 _Even if the world does not forgive you, I will forgive you._

 _Please do not deplore yourself._  
 _Even if you do not forgive the world, I will forgive you._

 _So please tell me._  
 _What will it take for you, to forgive me?_

 _— Frederica Bernkastel_

Donald Anderson, formerly Sigint, had been busy for three weeks in this basement, just another private research lab with a government contract for the development of an advanced communications system. This was a cold, dry cavern system appropriated to run computer research in the middle of the New Mexico mountains. Inside were banks of the latest Cray supercomputers built to handle millions of operations and enormous amounts of data per second. They were cooled by pipes of liquid nitrogen running through them. These supercomputers increasingly handled most of data from the Pentagon, the CIA, the White House, and thousands of government and private institutions combined throughout the United States, most of it without their knowledge.

The knowledge of this frightened Donald to the core as he realized about how much power he has at his fingertips at all the information held by the United States, from birth records to secret archives. But the very thing that frightened him most was his job as the keeper of a beast in its cage.

Zero's dream to bring the world under one roof made flesh. He was always asking himself if he should let it loose at the appointed hour, whether this was a good idea at all.

Ever since the Major was attacked by that skull-faced sonovabitch, he had been driven by his work. The bastard took a great bulk of Cipher's resources, starting with XOF, and went off the grid. A phantom that appeared and dissolved in black smoke, made even more galling by how so large an organization can disappear at will. It made the hunt for them all the more difficult.

But the worst sin to him was how the bastard took on Big Boss. Skull Face masterminded an attack on Mother Base in the Caribbean and sent him to the ocean. Such a thing was unforgivable as while they split over differences of opinion, he still saw him as that friend.

He owed the Major so much. Born on Veteran's Day 1939, the third child of a pilot who fought for the Spanish Republican Air force after he was turned down by the US Army Air Corps, and later being accepted to fill in the ranks of the Tuskegee Airmen, and a nurse who learned her trade and earned her spurs during the same war aiding Republican casualties, where his parents met at a hospital. He always stood out from his siblings and peers due to his interest in engineering in his home of Nashville, Tennessee. He created a homemade crystal radio when the family radio was broken and they were able to listen to programs with surprising clarity. He used to read sci-fi comics and followed the space race. He was actually impressed with Soviets putting Sputnik in space.

However, the future looked bleak for him. While not as bad as the Deep South, racism limited his opportunities and made worse by harassment by right-wing groups and the FBI due to their backgrounds serving on the Republican side. He joined the army at the age of eighteen in 1957, the same year Sputnik went up, which he thought was a good sign as desecration in the United States armed forces was underway and he needed money for college. However, it wasn't as he thought it would, forced by white officers in menial duties, which dampened his faith in the Army's promise of desegregation and the greater promise of end of racism in America. However, it wasn't all that hard for him as his skills in tinkering earned him some informal respect from black and white alike and in the process learned more about the people he was with.

He learned of Jimmy Wilson, a white boy from the Appalachian who resented the slurs made by others over his place of birth but is afraid of going back there as he feared he would end like his father in the coal mines, low pay, dangerous work, no future.

He learned of Jason Lamar, a streetsmart kid from the Bronx whose who learned a lot of race relations in New York's working class neighborhoods. His stories were hard-boiled and sobering reminders of the depths of ignorance, intolerance, and cynicism of human existence, yet a place of hope still exists in them.

He learned of Reuben Bernstein, a sergeant who as a kid survived the concentration camps of war and would tolerate no racism. It had brought him into conflict over another sergeant from the Deep South who constantly slurred his Jewish background and equating it with communism.

He learned of Albert Miller, an Alabama preacher's kid who wanted to have a restaurant in his home, where everyone is equally served regardless of race. He still held on to it despite his father being killed when the local Ku Klux Klan chapter bombed his church, the only casualty as he struggled mightily to save his congregation.

He learned of Freddy Jones, whose shortened his term of service so he can getaway from army life and join the budding civil rights movement.

This taught that the world can be brought together if everyone gets to hear each other's stories. In short: communication. He had been afforded the opportunity to go to night school where everything was more or less open and study electronics and anything related to communications.

Then after completing his army service and finishing high school, he still had no prospect, no way to apply his skills, no way to serve his country. That was until Major Zero came along, talent scouting for the CIA.

The Major listened intently to the young black man and his ideas and admired his spirit. They shared their belief in an information highway spanning the globe inspired by the breakthroughs created by the Major's countrymen in communications, decryption, and other related fields during the war. They believed it would finally bridge the gaps of the world, bringing men together as one. The lack of communication was one of the major reasons for conflict. Racism and nationalism are hindrances to recognizing true success.

His time in the army wasn't wasted as he got learn of the high-tech weapons and equipment developed by the CIA's technical department. But those thoughts had to be put away when they formed the FOX infiltration unit with the Boss, the legendary soldier, and Naked Snake. He and Snake got on together almost from the outset. Snake was a hell of a character, a quirky funny kind of guy who can be serious in the right - and times the wrong - moments. He seemed to like cardboard boxes and he was as wide-eyed as any like a fresh boot out of camp, in spite of his brief tour in South Vietnam were he trained some ARVN special forces and his his superiors considered that a quality eligible for his candidacy in FOX unit.

And he was hard man too. He survived the Bikini Atoll test only at the cost of his ability to have children whereas others developed symptoms like cancer.

With him they had helped stopped a madman named Volgin from heating up the Cold War at Tselinoyarsk. Sigint's support had been critical in terms of weapons and equipment and someone to talk to, along with the Major and Paramedic, which in spite of the worst parts of the mission, never lost his sense of humor. But the success of the operation and the world was at the cost of one thing...

The Boss.

Snake had to kill his mentor at final stages of the operation. Everyone in the room with him knew what he went through. They spotted this turmoil during the awarding ceremony when Lyndon Johnson awarded him the Distinguished Service Cross and the title of Big Boss after surpassing his mentor. The whole thing, the revelation that the Boss never defected at all but continued the mission and when it went south all the way due to Volgin, had gotten Snake to kill her, it all tore him up.

They split ways with Sigint joining the Department of Advance Research and Projects Agency, DARPA, to help find a way to bridge the scattered supercomputers of the country together in a secure communications network. Big Boss attempts to find work as an instructor or hunting guide were shot-lived while Zero continued to work for the CIA, creating his shadow army, XOF, with the Skull Face bastard as its boss.

Then they saved the world again, at another location off the grid, at Colombia's San Hieronymo Peninsula, where they stopped a madman modeled on the Boss herself, who thought to break the bonds that chain a soldier to the nations that used them, leading the FOX unit and the Russian based there in his quest for revolution.

After that incident, their names were cleared but Snake sank into a rut that made him consider the option of changing the world for the better. And he answered his call.

Then one day in 1970, the Patriots were born. Joined by a Russian Spetsnaz cowboy and blond female operative from the People's Republic of China, they sought to create the world the Boss saw and envisioned into reality.

But they quarreled bitterly over how this was to be achieved. Zero, Para-Medic. and himself had chosen to use information to heal the rift and Snake, Ocelot, and Eva, chose to break the soldier's chains. But anarchy wasn't his thing. He had seen the anti-war and civil rights protests. He had seen the effects of the war in 'Nam. He had read all about the destruction and horror of the wars of the twentieth century. He learned of the Holocaust from Sergeant Bernstein and the voicelessness of Wilson in dictating his own life. And they had stopped the world from destroying itself twice. No, constant war would sap the planet.

No, information was the key to humanity's future but it could not be trusted to humanity itself. A super-consciousness was required, which would erase all the petty reasons for humans to fight and carry the burden of bringing people together. The Peace Walker incident taught them that. Coldman was right about humanity too weak make the great decisions, too narrow to encompass the scope of the world. Artificial intelligence would change the world.

It wasn't easy though for him. The Mansfield Amendments limited funding for military R&D, especially in 1973. Limiting research to short-term application, research and development in America suffered as DARPA was a major source of funding and National Science Foundation didn't make up the difference as hoped for. But it wasn't a problem for him due to the Philosopher's Legacy, the untold billions of wealth of the Philosophers, secreted in bank accounts around the world. It allowed them to focus on two things: computer development and genetic research.

Development in computers had a blessing in disguise: the Mansfield Amendment initiated the brain drain of experts and graduates in computer technology from the universities to private enterprise due to the lack of defense spending the in the form of contracts. These firms had found freedom in out-of-the-box thinking, producing some outstandingly innovative ideas such as personal computers and microchips. This allowed Sigint to outsource most of the development of the AIS. And they've made a lot of progress with geniuses like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. But Strangelove was the best of them all. Her work had made tremendous strides in artificial intelligence but when she disappeared... where to?

Fortunately, they learned enough from her body of work to build the supercomputers, code-named after the presidents on Mount Rushmore. They were to be the model in which all decisions were to be made should the system go online.

On the other side of the coin was genetic development under Para-medic. This sort of thing put him at unease. They had cloned their own friend without his knowledge, something that was akin to being violated to Sigint and he truly felt worse for that, it's like treating him no better than a stud horse or a lab rat. Para-medic must have felt that way too but being a doctor, she buried her feelings under tons of work. Some of the people she dealt with really turned his stomach. Her Japanese assistant was a protege of a scientist who used his experience in Unit 731 to work for the US government. Unit 731 were the counterparts of the men who had done the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, which cost the life of his uncle, and were never on the whole brought to justice like Mengele's ilk. She was on loan from the Japanese government and there two other women who checked on her. Takano Miyo, some officer from the Japanese armed forces with a haughty psychotic laugh and Nomura, probably a government spook, always, polite, vague mysterious. No doubt to him they were using Clark's work for their own purposes and he had told her from time to time to tighten up security in her work, which she responded that she'll do as she sees fit.

The other thing that bothered him was the vocal cord parasites, which Clark had down a lot for her genetic research, and then discarded. She felt her idea of discarding them was sloppy as Skull Face took all that when he usurped Cipher from Zero. And what sort of research would she gain from those nasty little bastards? Some wetwork job that can target DNA or something... It is for that reason that all Cipher facilities still under their control had some of the best NBC protection in the world and they double up on NBC drills periodically.

Clark also engaged in cybernetics, trying to give enhance and repair the human body by providing artificial limbs. Some of that work went under his department thus he cooperated with it.

And he though of Big Boss... What about him?

No doubt the events of the Virtuous Mission and Operation SNAKE EATER had changed him and the final nail in the coffin was the infection that was Gene, who warped his mind with an idea of a nation for soldiers, Sparta or Prussia reincarnated. He tried that experiment in Central America where they staved off Coldman's mad scheme. Still, he always held out hope that Big Boss, no, Snake, would stop and talk to them. Now, it's no longer possible with him in a coma at some hospital in Cyprus.

It was to be second time to where brought back together again and perhaps the last. Ocelot and Eva helped delivered Big Boss's body out of the sea and into safety. Zero provided the place of treatment. Sigint since then pursued all leads. And Para-medic... continued her work, as a form of mourning. Trying to make sure he lives on, in the sons they created out of him, whom he had disowned.

A knock on the door shook him from deep thought. He replied brusquely, "Enter." He was getting tired.

"Telex for you, sir," said a senior lab assistant as she entered the door and handed the coded telex straight from Langley.

"Thank you." He took the telex marked _EYES ONLY_ and read it. In addition to his duties as DARPA chief, he had become the de-facto head of Cipher - Zero's Cipher. Now what did Langley brought to him today?

The report was unusually speedy and detailed in the light of their dwindling HUMINT assets as XOF continued to gnaw at them every time they take on them.

It stated a number of unusual events in Japan:

The disappearance of number of high-level officials, politicians, and other prominent personalities, whereabouts unknown. They haven't shown up to work at their side of the world.

The attack of the "Skull Men" where a several places in Japan where attacked by blade-wielding, ninja-like soldiers with horrible disfigurements that looked like skulls. Witnesses described the attacks as quick and particularly brutal, the devastated remains shocking them.

The burning of a small island in French Polynesian which the nearby local authorities placed on alert, fearing a volcanic eruption.

The disappearance of several patients from sanitariums throughout the country. Interesting of note was that some of the patients were Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors who were chronically ill and he had not been visited by their kin for as much five years, ten years maximum. Another were victims of the Minamata disease, the mercury poisoning of the town by private industry. To this day, many of the victims were uncompensated and the government response remains inadequate. The victims, Sigint, noticed had suffered the more severe effects.

Cipher in Southeast Asia reported of another network being co-opted by XOF as indicated by increased XOF presence, springing prisoners from gulags (termed "rehabilitation centers) in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. They were also rolling up a previously unknown network that the report stated was based from Japan.

This was too much of a coincidence, so many places at once. By the morning, there's no way to hide it from the major news agencies. XOF is taunting him.

He at once burned the paper with a lighter, to leave no trace of the report here and after it turned to ashes left the room.

Walking from his office to the computer rooms felt heavy as each stepped echoed in the hallways. Another major test was on its way. He was making a decision. Up until now, the supercomputers were not used to their full ability, mainly storing data and facilitating communications. They have tested them frequently to see if they can automate functions such as coordinating the country's ability to go to war should the White House be nuked. Now here he was, at the threshold, contemplating as the moment he hits the button, he effectively handed over human destiny to four supercomputers working in one.

Staff where busy everywhere as they made last minute preparations for the test, in consoles and within the banks of processors. They were some of his country's brightest minds in the field of computers and programming, working almost nonstop in these sterile dungeons, drinking cold coffee, often subsisting on cigarettes, stale sandwiches, pizza, and donuts, under round-the-lock security. So much has been given to make Zero's dream - their dream - come true.

"Here to see the show, sir?" asked a senior technician, a whiz kid from CalTech.

"No, I'm here to start it," was the reply.

The CalTech man blinked his eyes twice. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I want this fully operational." At this moment, he was thinking about it hard. Cipher's HUMINT network was slowly dwindling do to downsizing and the attrition they earned from Skull Face and elsewhere. The hunt for Skull Face was turning into a frustrating exercise. Moreover, Skull Face's plan with the vocal cord parasites and the Metal Gear technology he stole threatens the world and he would unleash hell on earth anytime he was ready.

He had to come up with a decision.

"It's not ready, sir."

Not ready? He wanted more time and more information but he had neither. He wanted to find that Skull Face bastard and wring his hands around the neck for trying to kill Snake and Zero!

"I know." He no choice. The time was now. "Hit it."

The technicians type in the proper commands and the computer began its magic, started by a code made out of ones and zeroes, searching for a phantom human intelligence was incapable of finding. He hoped he can find Skull Face in time before he strikes. He also hoped he can reign the beast in once it had done its work.

But the die was cast. He knew deep in himself that he effectively signed the death sentence of the world's freedom. And there was only one deterrent to that, one countermeasure: the terrible children, the sons of Big Boss. The only hope for the future lay in them.

 _They've created a desert and have called it "peace".  
-quoted from Calgacus in the_ Battle of Culloden _(1964)_

* * *

A/N: This chapter is an exploration of Sigint's relation with Big Boss and Zero just prior to the events of Phantom Pain and how they would influence his role in the Patriots AI's usurpation of human destiny.


	9. Appendix

**Appendix**

 **Additional author's notes...**

* * *

 _That's because_  
 _I'm gonna become much much more happy from now on._

 _I'm not gonna compromise with just this._  
 _We are gonna take back all of our happiness that we lost._

 _For me, that's about a hundred year's worth._  
 _For you, a thousand year's worth._

 _— Frederica Bernkastel_

* * *

 **Chapter 2**

On the subject of government services, the Science and Technology Agency is a Cabinte Office agency of the Japanese government responsible for overseeing technological development would be merged with the Ministry of Education in January 2001 to form the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Defense Agency was created in the Fifties in order to oversee the Japanese Self-Defense Force was upgraded to the cabinet level as the Ministry of Defense from in January 9, 2007. The Ministry of Home Affairs, responsible for administrating Japan's internal affairs was merged with the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and Management and Coordination Agency to form the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications while many of the MPT's functions were transferred to an independent post service which would later be Japan Post.

In Japanese politics both historical and contemporary, factionalism is quite common and backdoor deals are prevalent, even today. This is a very common theme portrayed in anime and manga. Also, kingmakers or power brokers have immense influence in Japanese politics when it was dominated by the LDP throughout the second half of the 20th century. These people can make or break future and current prime ministers. Examples of these are Shin Kanemaru, Kakuei Tanaka, and Ichiro Ozawa.

 **Chapter 3**

Unit 731 was indeed known officially as Water Purification Unit 731, used as cover for their horrific biological experiments. Many of them were pardoned to work on biowarfare by the United States. Nobody knows for sure how many of Japan's big names in their medical establishment are war criminals. It's most certain to imagine that these men are racists and classists to the core. While they honor war criminals in Yasukuni Shrine, it won't be hard for them to consider POWs and civilians in occupied territory as trash at worst or subjects at best, whose only purpose is to obey their betters, at the mercies of their whims. And as a matter of fact, I noticed a subtle kind of classism in Japanese anime and manga.

The _Higurashi_ series always points subtly to the village as a Burakumin settlement. The Burakumin(literal translation village or hamlet people) was a traditional underclass in Japanese society, discriminated heavily as they worked as they are criminals, butchers, leatherworkers, and other livelihoods that come in contact with death, since death is an impurity in Shinto, kegare. As a magistrate in the Edo period had once put it, "an Eta is worth one seventh of an ordinary person" and a person cannot be charged with murder with one-seventh of a man. The Burakumin are traditional recruits of the Yakuza so the Sonozakis shouldn't come as surprise. The calling of African-Americans "niggers" by the political godfather isn't also a surprise as the Japanese, who for all their politeness, can be racist in ways that'll stun people in the West and maybe even put the KKK to shame, although it depends on what they hate at the time. No doubt in their minds that the public will forget about the village after its wiped out, owing to its Buraku inhabitants. The Japanese claim that the Burakumin problem is taken cared off but as with their war record and their approach to social issues, I take that statement with a grain of salt.

The lymph idea was inspired after I took a look at the lymph nodes and their parent system, the lymphatic system. And the Wolbachia idea came from The _Phantom Pain_ , courtesy of Code Talker, as a counter measure against the vocal cord parasites. Also, Pentostomida was mentioned as modern descendant of VC 'sites, it being mentioned here was used as a basis for parasite developed by the Chinese philosophers which target English literacy. Still Wolbachia fits thought as it gives the cicadas a useful purpose. All and all, this presents my ideas of the Hinamizawa syndrome so don't take as gospel, although an interesting debate may be in order.

 **Chapter 4**

Operation Damocles is a real-life operation by Israel that targeted Egypt's ballistic missile program and the Germans employed in it. It is a minor plot point in Frederick Forsyth's novel, The Odessa File. Although the Mossad was the one carrying out the operation, the Shin Bet(their equivalent to MI-5 or FBI) carried out the actual attacks since they lack an operations branch at the time. The Jabal Hamzah facility is still in operation today.

Having termed Plan Mappo to Operation _Nihonto_ is a reference to Operation Gladio, the codename for NATO's clandestine network of cells of stay-behind operatives who would be used to create armed resistance in the event of occupation by Soviet forces following a successful invasion of Europe, the names are derived from swords, Japanese sword and Roman legionnaire's sword respectively. Gladio is controversial in Europe, especially in Italy as it had a role in the Years of Lead which racked the country with both rightwing and leftwing terror from the late 60's to the early 80's. The chapter's title refers to the strategy of tension allegedly conducted by Western governments during the Cold War, which used terror, misinformation, false flag ops in order to manipulate public opinion.

In _Peace Walker_ , Miller was mentioned as having been a policeman, most likely military police, in the SDF. His superiors considered this a liability so he was never promoted. From what I know, there are many scandals around the bend in Japan, most famous were the Lockheed bribery scandals. Lockheed bribed Liberal Democratic Party officials to get the SDF to buy the F-104 Strafighter, the first sustained Mach 2 warplane but having a notorious safety record(this lead it to being named the Widowmaker during German service), instead of the Grumman F11F-1F Super Tiger as replacement for their previous top-of-the-line fighter, the F-86 Sabre. They also got Japanese civil air services to buy the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar instead of the McDonell Douglas DC-10 as their standard carrier after hiring rightwing Yakuza boss Yoshio Kodama as consultant to get them to buy it. Here, "Tokyo" would be nervous if Miller had run cases which would lead to them so yeah, they stonewalled him whenever they could.

 **Chapter 5**

Skull Face's saying was a paraphrase of Churchill when on the night of November 13, 1940 bombers raided Berlin during a conference between Nazi foreign minister Joachim Ribbentrop and Soviet counterpart Vyacheslav Molotov over the inclusion of the Soviet Union into the Tripartite Pact (Germany, Japan, Italy) where all parties are to respect "each respect each other's natural sphere of influence, disputes to be settled "in an amicable way," and that none of the four join any or support any combination "directed against one of the Four Powers." Must of us know where that ended. The bombing made a mockery of Hitler's claim that England was a beaten nation. The Prime Minister wrote that it was timed for the occasion.

Miruko is the Japanese name for Maitreya, the final Buddha who would come in the Age of Degenerate Dharma and teach the true form of it.

Account Number 21214 is a reference to the movie _Rollover_ a slush fund where Emery is moving money belonging to the Arabs into gold as a safe haven against potential losses if the dollar collapses.

In context of the Cold War, America rolled back on the liberalization of Japanese politics. This was called Reverse Course. The occupation had begun with various moves toward democratization, including land reform, the purge of officials responsible for Japan's ultra-nationalism, and the suppression of both the zaibatsu and the yakuza. This extended to Japan's new constitution, which included an article that barred the government from maintaining a standing army. This constitution and related policies had been written by Rooseveltian New-Dealers. The Reverse Course changed such policies in favor of the containment policy. As a result, public-sector workers lost the right to strike, private-sector unions lost a great deal of bargaining power. Furthermore, severe blows were dealt to ideological freedom, to the zaibatsu-busting process, and to the suppression of the yakuza. It also allowed for the creation of the Japan Self Defense Forces. It put conservative politicians back in power, who went on to spearhead the development of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party. According to George F. Kennan's theory, Japan would serve as an industrial engine of East Asia; by extension, a strong Japanese economy would prevent communism from spreading in Asia. A remilitarized and strengthened Japan made Japan the cornerstone of US security policy in East the US Dept. of State official history puts it "In this 'Reverse Course,' Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, General Douglas MacArthur, focused on strengthening, not punishing, what would become a key cold war ally".

George F. Kennan, belonged to a group of foreign policy elders known as "The Wise Men", who provided President Harry Truman advise in foreign policy, an are which he had no knowledge of. Incidentally, this sounds like the Wisemen's Committee, the founding members of the Philosophers in the _Metal Gear_ universe. In book The Wise Men, they were described as the hidden architects behind the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, and Cold War containment. Kennan, in particular, is regarded as "the father of containment." They were portrayed as personifying an ideal of statesmanship marked by nonpartisanship, pragmatic internationalism, and aversion to ideological fervor. They tended to be practical, realistic, and nonideological. After the six had retired from public life, they and other like-minded establishment elders were dubbed The Wise Men. In 1967 and 1968, Johnson summoned them and a few others (including General Omar Bradley) to advise him on foreign policy, particularly the Vietnam War. In November 1967, they unanimously recommended staying in Vietnam, but in a pivotal second meeting in March 1968, most said the war could not be won and American troops should be withdrawn.

To many Japanese the Korean War was merely 'fire on the other shore' (taigan no kaji). While it's open knowledge that Japan received a boost during the conflict, manufacturing supplies, equipment, even weapons and ammo for the United Nations forces fighting there, it is lesser known that Japan contracted services in the form of ships and labor. Through the Japanese government and many private contractors, many Japanese found work in logistics, repair and construction. Many of them were confined in the bases or in ships modified as floating barracks in ports. According to an estimate by Japan's Special Procurement Agency, 56 Japanese sailors and labourers were killed in the Korean War zone in the first six months of the war alone; 23 of the deaths occurred when Japanese-crewed ships were sunk by mines. No official estimate of the total number of Japanese killed in the Korean War has ever been published, indeed, there has never been official recognition by the US or Japanese governments of the role of Japanese in the war zone. This was a minor but signifcant plot point in the the Studio Ghibli film From _Up on Poppy Hill._ To this day, neither Japan or the US government does not acknowledge those workers or the acts of the Maritime Self-Defense Force's predecessor, the Coastal Safety Force, whose ships performed minesweeping operations during that conflict. Many of the outsourcing of tasks by military to private contractors common during conflicts now a days had a start in that conflict.

 **Chapter 6**

Skull Face's calling out of the men's backgrounds referred to many events in history such as the rehabiliation of Japanese war criminals and the help they provided, small reference to the Yakuza's involvement in Japanese politics including the involvement of a Korean oyabun in the kidnapping of Kim Dae-Jung as well as the terrorist incidents involving Japan such as the rise of the Japanese Red Army and the Japan Airlines hijackings. When Skull Face referred to the scientist's early career, he was talking about the fire ballon or Fu-go raids launched by Japan late in the war, the first intercontinental attacks in the world. They were generally ineffective, having a few that reached the North American mainland but they engender worries of biological agents being used.

And the accusation by Skull Face to the general and Home Minister of secretly training life sentence, death row convicts, and Yakuza is fictional, inspired by Robert Ludlum's _Bourne_ Trilogy, which talks about how Jason Bourne served with Medusa, a top-secret unit of convicts trained and supplied by the CIA to conduct attritional guerrilla warfare inside Communist territory in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, basically a death squad behind enemy lines. While this may be an unintentional reference to the real-life elite multi-unit MACV-SOG in terms of operation doctrine, which was still classified when he wrote the series, there was another real-life precedence when the South Korean government created the 209th Detachment, 2325th Group, a hit squad against North Korean leadership in retaliation of an assassination attempt against the South Korean president. It was made up of convicts and jobless youths who were promised shortened sentences and jobs respectively and were given a brutal regiment of training to do so. When the op was called off, they mutinied and tried to get to Seoul but where intercepted by the army, four survivors captured, tried and executed.

The Irish language survived in areas where it remains a primary language called Gaeltacht. The Republic of Ireland kept the Irish language alive in various ways including summer colleges in the Gaeltacht, wich are attended by tens of thousands of teenagers annually. Students live with Gaeltacht families, attend classes, participate in sports, go to _céilithe_ and are obliged to speak Irish. All aspects of Irish culture and tradition are encouraged. Gaeltacht's equivalents in Scottish Gaelic and Welsh are _Gàidhealtachd_ and _Y Fro Gymraeg_ respectively.

The Plantation of Ulster was one of the causes of "the Troubles," the sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants during the '70's through '90's, which captured headlines all over the world.

The **Welsh Not** or **Welsh Note** or **Welsh stick** was a punishment used in some schools in Wales in the 19th and possibly early 20th century to dissuade children from speakingWelsh. It was represented as a piece of wood, inscribed with the letters "WN", that was hung around the necks of children who spoke Welsh during the school day. The "not" was given to any child overheard speaking Welsh, who could pass it to a different child if they were overheard speaking Welsh. By the end of the day, the wearer of the "not" would be punished. The purpose of the "not" was to discourage pupils from speaking Welsh, at a time when English was considered by some to be the only suitable medium of instruction. Headmasters were required to seek the approval of parents before implementing a "Welsh not" policy. There is strong evidence of use of the Welsh Not in schools prior to 1870, however it was never official government policy. This has an equivalent policy in American Indian boarding schools, a fact touched on in MGSV: TPP and _Hōgenfuda_ (方言札?, "dialect card"), suppression of Ryukyuan languages and dialects of the Tōhoku region in Japan.

What Evans/Ifan said about burning English vacation homes in Wales referenced to Meibion Glyndŵr(Sons of Glyndŵr), a Welsh nationalist movement violently opposed to the loss of Welsh culture and language. They were formed in response to the housing crisis precipitated by large numbers of houses being bought by wealthy English people for use as holiday homes, pushing up house prices beyond the means of many locals. They were responsible for setting fire to English-owned holiday homes in Wales from 1979 to the mid-1990s.

 **Chapter 7**

Hiroshima and Nagaski survivors, the Hibakusha, were discriminated heavily due to public ignorance of radiation sickness and so are their descendants. This also reveals how Japanese culture sees disabled people as a burden as in Shintoism, the deformed and disabled are an affront to their notions of order and purity while in Buddhism, it's only the result of the negative karma they accumulated in their past lives. A chilling example of this is the Sagamihara killings, in which a former caretaker leaves 19 dead. And the public response was less than most people anticipated as few prayer vigils are made for them than say the Fukushima and the tsunami-earthquake tragedies. Many major Japanese news papers have called this a hate crime but with Japan, is it really that serious to them? But the real tragedy is that the disabled remained discriminated heavily, most are institutionalized and many do not hold jobs despite mandates by Japanese law.

As demonstrated in chapter 6 and here, the role information plays in society was a recurring core theme in Kojima's Metal Gear. It also reflected to a great extent Japanese attitudes towards reality. Which probably explained the textbook and war crime denial policies of the Japanese government and the establishment.

The concept of face is prevalent in all cultures one way or the other but in East Asia, this is a paramount virtue. Face is the prestige or dignity of an individual or group within a social context. It is highly-valued and to lose face would bring great shame. Another reason for Japan's historic revisionism.

 _Kotodama_ (言霊) is a Japanese term meaning 'word-spirit.' It refers to the original, divine spirit of a word, before it enters the world of thought waves. The significance of _kotodama_ is that words are alive, and have the power to create. No doubt this what Kojima had in mind when creating the Metal Gear Games, especially in _MGS2_ and _Phantom Pain_. It is also why Japan's official historical revisionism and much more remains very prevalent to this day.

We can see why Skull Face would detest them so much. The power to twist words and contexts at their whim is abhorrent to him, especially about how Hungary was crushed by Soviet Union twice during WW2 and the uprising in 1956, and how those events were defined in Soviet-dictated historiography; their urge to shape the world to their own image; their non-acceptance of the ugly realities of the world.

 **Epilogue**

I took lore from the other MGS games and added some of my own to give this chapter flavor.

I based Donald Anderson's parents on James Peck, who was an African American man from Pennsylvania who was turned down when he applied to become a military pilot in the US. He then went on to serve in the Spanish Republican Air Force until 1938 and was credited with five kills; and Salaria Kea, a young African American nurse from Harlem Hospital who served as a military nurse with the American Medical Bureau in the Spanish Civil War. She was one of the two only African American female volunteers in the midst of the war-torn Spanish Republican areas.

I believed Sigint entered the army when desegregation was well under way but institutional racism wasn't. It was inspired by the experiences of Jimmy Hendrix's and Walter E. Williams' experience in army service, the latter who waged an active campaign to challenge the army's "Jim Crow" mentality. As a result of several court-martials, Williams found himself transferred to Korea. Upon arriving there, Williams marked "Caucasian" for race on his personnel form. When challenged on this, Williams replied wryly if he had marked "Black", he would end up getting all the worst jobs.

Sigint would feel indebted to Zero for recognizing his talent and getting a job with the CIA and would certainly share the same thoughts about the world.

Major Zero would have found an information highway as the best means to unite the world more to his liking due to the influence of British achievements in the field of communication and others related to it during the war, especially the works of Alan Turing and the decryption work done at Bletchley Park. No doubt the rise of Victorian Britain and its colonial empire where influenced by the rise of telegraphy, also known as the Victorian Internet and Charles Babbage and Lady Ada Lovelace's own contribution, the first programmable computer.

Two controversial amendments by Mansfield limiting military funding of research were passed by Congress.

The Mansfield Amendment of 1969, "passed as part of the fiscal year 1970 Military Authorization Act (Public Law 91-121) prohibited military funding of research that lacked a direct or apparent relationship to specific military function. Through subsequent modification the Mansfield amendment moved the Department of Defense toward the support of more short-term applied research in universities."[16] The amendment affected the military, such as research funding by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The Mansfield Amendment of 1973 expressly limited appropriations for defense research through the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is largely independent of the military, to projects with direct military application.

An earlier Mansfield Amendment, offered in 1971, called for the number of US troops stationed in Europe to be halved. On May 19, 1971, however, the Senate defeated the resolution 61–36.

As a wrote the final chapter, it was headcannon to me that Dr. Clark's(Para-medic) Japanese assistant who would be Solid Snake's surrogate mother, was researcher on loan from "Tokyo" as indicated by presense of Takano Miyo and Nomura in that chapter. The **Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment** was a clinical study. The study was done between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service. Its goal was to study how syphilis progressed (got worse) if it was not treated. The study's subjects (the people who were being studied) were poor African American sharecroppers. They were told that they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government.

This experiment is famous because none of the men being studied were told that they had syphilis. Even after the 1940s, when doctors realized that penicillin could cure syphilis, the men were not given this cure, or any other treatment. The men were not told that they were not getting real treatment, or that a cure was available. This study raised many important questions about medical ethics.

The attack of the Parasites Unit's attacks in Japan are a reference to Skull Man, a one-shot manga popular in 1970. The hero of the story, whose parents have been murdered, grows up to use his peculiar powers to take revenge. The original Skull Man was one of the first antiheroes to be seen in manga, someone who would sacrifice the lives of innocents in his quest for vengeance. This darkness was what made the Skull Man so magnetic and successful. In the story, he is responsible for massacres and catastrophes. The Skull Man is actually not a person, but an ancient helmet that grants the user supernatural abilities and deadly weapons.

I believed that Skull Face would have convinced Hikabuza and Minamata mercury poisoning victims to join the ranks of XOF, playing up their shame for their condition and the rejection or silence they faced by society, no doubt offering revenge. They would have been in the Skulls after receiving parasite therapy.

Being unable to catch Skull Face, following only his trail of taunts would have frustrated Sigint to no end as his own assets are incapable to stopping Skull Face and fears when and where he will strike, noting his experience in stopping two disasters with Snake. Without Snake to help him and Zero to guide him, he would have been motivated to bring the Patriot AIs online, however incomplete, in a desperate bid to stop him as well as his own desire to avenge Snake and Zero.

* * *

 _"Why are we still here? Just to suffer? Every night, I can feel my leg... and my arm... even my fingers. The body I've lost... the comrades I've lost... won't stop hurting... It's like they're all still there. You feel it, too, don't you? I'm gonna make them give back our past."_

 _— **Kazuhira Miller**_


End file.
